m 


THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


From  the  library  of 
Charles  Melville  Moss 
Professor  of 
Classics 
Presented  bv  Mrs.  Moss 
881 


Return  this  book  on  or  before  the 
Latest  Date  stamped  below. 

University  of  Illinois  Library 

IS56 

v?. 

ir.U  l9S 

XENOPHON 


BY 

SIR  ALEXANDER  GRANT,  Bart,  LL.D. 

PRINCIPAL  OP  THE  UNIVERSITY  OP  EDINBURGH 


NEW  YORK: 
JOHN    B.    ALDEN,  PUBLISHER, 
1885. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  page: 

I.  Notices  of  the  Life  of  Xenophon  Previous  to  the  Ex- 

pedition of  Cyrus   5 

II.  The  Expedition  of  Cyrus   12 

in.  The  Retreat  of  the  Ten  Thousand  Greeks  to  the  Shore 

of  the  Euxine   27 

IV.  The  Subsequent  Fortunes  of  the  Ten  Thousand,  and 

Notices  of  the  Later  Life  of  Xenophon   53 

V.  Xenophon's  "  Recollections  of  Socrates"   80 

VI.  His  "Education  of  Cyrus"   112 

VII.  The  Minor  Works  of  Xenophon   135 

Conclusion   155 


SSI 


vl: 

XENOPHON. 



-0  CHAPTER  I. 

NOTICES  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  XENOPHON  PREVIOUS  TO 
THE  EXPEDITION  OF  CYRUS. 

There  is  none  of  the  ancient  Greek  authors  whose  per- 
sonality stands  more  clearly  before  us  than  that  of  Xen- 
ophon.  We  owe  this  entirely  to  his  own  writings,  for 
external  notices  of  him  are  meagre  and  untrustworthy. 
But  the  historian  of  the  expedition  of  Cyrus,  the  re- 
corder of  the  conversations  of  Socrates,  and  the  varied 
essayist  on  so  many  topics  of  ancient  Greek  life,  was  one 
of  those  who,  in  depicting  other  things,  give  at  the  same 
time  a  portrait  of  themselves.  His  chief  work  is  the 
account  of  a  military  expedition  in  which  he  was  himself 
engaged,  and  in  which  he  ultimately  played  a  very 
prominent  and  leading  part.  So  it  follows  only  naturally 
that  five  sevenths  of  this  work  are  almost  pure  auto- 
biography. We  have  thus  from  Xenophon's  own  hand  a 
mmute  and  fiving  picture  of  himself  and  his  actions  for 
more  than  a  year  and  a  half,  during  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting episodes  of  military  history.  We  have  from  him- 
self also  an  indication  of  his  subsequent  mode  of  life  in 
his  country  residence,  when  he  had  settled  down  into  a 
landed  proprietor,  and  had  exchanged  the  sword  for  the 

6361v51 


6 


XENOPIION. 


pen.  And  all  his  writings,  though  perfectly  artistic, 
are  so  naive,  communicative,  and  at  the  same  time  so 
consistent  in  tone,  that  we  can  have  no  doubt  that  they 
reflect  his  real  character.  They  seem  to  bring  the  man 
himself,  with  his  habits  and  ways  of  thinking,  his  prin- 
ciples, prejudices,  and  superstitions,  vividly  before  us. 
But  except  what  can  be  derived  from  these  sources,  we 
have  scarcely  any  information  about  the  life  of  Xeno- 
phon.  There  is  a  biography  of  him  written  by  Diogenes 
Leartius  at  the  end  of  the  second  century  a.d.  But, 
like  the  rest  of  the  Lives"  of  Diogenes,  it  is  a  mere 
debris  of  anecdotes  and  traditions;  and  no  assertion 
which  it  contains  can  be  accepted  without  criticism. 

There  is  no  reason,  however,  for  discrediting  the 
statement  that  Xenophon  was  the  son  of  one  Gryllus,  an 
Athenian  citizen ;  for  this  is  corroborated  by  the  better- 
attested  fact  that  the  historian  had  a  son  also  named 
Gryllus — it  being  the  custom  of  Athens  to  call  children 
after  their  grandfathers.  The  family  of  Xenophon  must 
Jiave  belonged  to  the  upper  middle  ranks  of  Athens,  as 
he  himself  was  one  of  the  class  of  knights,"  or  horse- 
men, for  whom  a  property-qualification  was  required. 
But  he  could  not  have  had  much  hereditary  riches  to  de- 
pend on,  else  he  would  not  have  made  himself  a  soldier 
of  fortune,  fighting  "for  his  own  hand"  in  Asia,  and 
being  anxious  to  settle  down  there  as  a  colonist,  had  cir- 
cumstances been  favorable. 

As  to  the  exact  date  of  the  birth  of  Xenophon,  there 
has  been  some  doubt  and  controversy.  This,  however, 
has  arisen  from  the  words  occurring  at  the  commence- 
ment of  one  of  his  minor  works,  called  "The  Banquet," 
in  which  he  professes  to  describe  circumstances  at 
which  he  was  himself  present.  The  supper-party  in 
question  was  connected  with  the  Panathenaic  games  of 


NOTICES  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  XENOPUON,  7 


the  year  420  B.C. ;  and  some  critics,  assuming  that  Xen- 
ophon  must  have  been  more  than  twenty  years  old  at 
the  time,  place  the  date  of  his  birth  at  about  445  B.C. 
This  assumption  is  connected  with  a  story,  of  apocry- 
phal origin,  that  Xenophon  was  present  at  the  battle  of 
Delium  (434  B.C.),  and  that  his  life  was  saved  by  Soc- 
rates on  that  occasion.  Other  circumstances,  however, 
prevent  us  from  believing  in  the  reality  of  such  an  oc- 
currence. And  as  to  the  Banquet,"  internal  evidence 
tends  to  show  that  this  is  a  merely  imaginative  picture, 
so  that  we  cannot  build  any  theory  on  Xenophon's  hav- 
ing stated  that  he  was  **  present"  on  the  occasion,  and 
still  less  can  we  find  any  ground  in  his  description  of 
the  circumstances  for  deciding  how  old  he  may  have 
been  at  the  time .  The  real  data  that  we  have  for  fixing 
the  age  of  Xenophon  consist  in  the  terms  in  which  he 
speaks  of  himself  in  relating  the  "  Retreat  of  the  Ten 
Thousand."  And  these  are  suflaciently  conclusive  for 
all  practical  purposes.  He  twice  speaks  of  the  immatu- 
rity of  his  own  age,  at  that  period,  as  rendering  him 
diffident  in  offering  counsel  to  the  other  captains  of  the 
Greek  army.  He  mentions  himself  as  youngest  of  the 
seven  officers  chosen  to  conduct  the  retreat;  he  relates 
his  own  constant  performance  of  duties  requiring  youth- 
ful activity;  and  he  records  that  the  Thracian  chief, 
Schuthes,  thinking  that  he  was  possibly  unmarried, 
offered  him  the  hand  of  his  daughter.  From  all  this 
we  may  fairly  gather  that  Xenophon,  at  the  time  of  the 
expedition  of  Cyrus  (401  B.C.),  was  not  more  than  thirty 
years  of  age.  His  birth  may,  with  great  probability,  be 
placed  about  the  year  431  B.C.,  contemporaneously  with 
the  commencement  of  the  Peloponnesian  w^ar. 

Through  the  successive  phases  of  that  twenty-eight 
years'  war,  Xenophon  grew  up  to  manhood.   He  was 


8 


XENOPEOK 


probably  unconscious  of  the  horrors  of  the  plague 
which  raged  at  Athens  during  the  second  and  third 
years  of  the  war.  But  he  may  well  have  remembered 
in  his  early  boyhood  the  annual  invasion  of  Attica  by 
the  Spartans,  and  the  ravaging  of  the  country  up  to 
the  very  city  walls.  When  about  seventeen  years  old 
he  probably  shared  in  the  enthusiasm  connected  with 
the  sending  off  of  the  Athenian  expedition  against 
Sicily;  and  two  years  later  he  witnessed  the  national 
grief  and  consternation  at  the  news  of  the  utter  de- 
struction of  the  Athenian  force  at  Syracuse.  When 
about  twenty-eight  years  old,  he  saw  the  blockade, 
and  finally  the  capitulation,  of  Athens,  which  in  some 
respects  might  be  compared  to  the  capitulation  of 
Paris  in  the  year  1871.  Such  comparisons  must  not 
be  pushed  too  far;  but  in  some  particulars  the  relation 
of  the  Spartans  to  the  Athenian  people  might  be  said  to 
be  analogous  to  that  of  the  Germans  to  the  French  in 
the  great  Franco-Prussian  war.  The  events  contempo- 
raneous with  his  youth  and  early  manhood  must  neces. 
sarily  have  had  an  influence  on  the  mind  and  character 
of  Xenophon.  It  was  altogether  an  unhappy  time — 
a  period  in  which  the  national  prestige  of  Athens  was 
gradually  being  lost.  The  effect  on  the  mind  of  a  youth- 
ful Athenian  would  naturally  be  to  prevent  his  feeling 
a  pride  in  his  country.  This  is,  doubtless,  an  unfavor- 
able circumstance  for  any  one.  In  after-life  we  find 
Xenophon  not  absolutely  unpatriotic — indeed,  in  his 
writings  he  appears  constantly  to  be  devising  methods 
for  the  improvement  of  the  Athenian  resources;  but  we 
find  him  deficient  in  anything  like  reverence  for  Athens. 
He  seems  to  '*sit  loose"  on  his  country  and  he  shows 
a  readiness  to  denationalize  himself,  and  throw  in  liis 
fortunes  with  those  of  foreign  states,  which  can  be  best 


NOTICm  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  XENOPHON.  9 


explained  by  reference  to  the  events  and  influences  of 
his  youth. 

In  the  meantime,  Xenophon  had  shared  with  his 
countrymen  that  awakening  of  the  intellect  which  es- 
pecially characterized  Athens  at  the  very  period  of 
her  incipient  political  decline.  It  was  the  time  when 
Athenian  poetry  and  art  had  reached  their  acme,  and 
now  oratory  and  debate  were  being  studied  and  prac- 
tised with  zeal;  Greek  prose  style  was  being  cultivated 
and  developed;  and,  from  the  discussions  of  the  Sophists 
and  Socrates,  philosophy  was  receiving  a  new  birth. 
The  keen,  lively  mind  of  Xenophon  drank  in  all  the 
influences  of  the  age.  He  probably  never  listened  to 
the  eloquence  of  the  great  Pericles,  but  he  must  have 
heard  innumerable  debates  in  the  Agora,  and  probably 
took  part  in  many.  From  year  to  year  he  enjoyed  the 
refining  influence  of  the  great  masterpieces  of  Greek 
tragedy  brought  upon  the  stage  by  Sophocles,  Euripides, 
and  Agathon;  while  at  the  same  time  the  inimitable 
comedies  of  Aristophanes  furnished  annually  a  humorous 
and  intellectual  commentary  on  public  events  and  char- 
acters. Xenophon's  thoughts  must  necessarily  liMve  been 
much  engaged  with  war  and  foreign  politics;  and,  above 
all,  he  had  the  great  advantage,  during  the  plastic  period 
of  his  youth,  of  being  the  pupil  and  companion  of  the 
renowned  Athenian  teacher,  Socrates. 

We  cannot  tell  whether  the  tradition,  which  has  been 
preserved  by  Diogenes,  of  the  beginning  of  this  relation- 
ship, can  be  regarded  as  literally  true.  But  at  all  events 
it  IS  a  very  pleasing  anecdote.  We  are  told  that  Socrates 
encountered  Xenophon,  who  was  "a  beautiful,  modest 
boy,"  in  a  narrow  passage,  put  his  stick  across  so  as  to 
stop  him,  and  asked  him  where  provisions  could  be 
bought?"   On  Xenophon  mentioning  some  place,  he 


10 


XENOPUON. 


again  asked,  *'And  where  are  men  made  noble  and 
good?"  As  Xenophon  knew  not  what  to  answer,  he 
said,  Well,  then,  follow  and  learn."  And  thenceforth 
Xenophon  became  the  disciple  of  Socrates. 

He  appears  to  have  diligently  applied  himself  to  profit 
by  his  opportunities,  for  he  was  considered  by  the  an- 
cients to  have  been  "  the  first  man  who  ever  took  notes 
of  conversations."  He  made  a  considerable  collection 
of  the  conversations  of  Socrates  thus  noted  down. 
These  were  afterwards  published  in  the  book  commonly 
known  as  the  Memorabilia,"  for  which  all  the  intel- 
lectual world  must  be  grateful  to  Xenophon.  But  per- 
sonally he  can  only  have  been  to  a  limited  extent  in- 
fluenced by  the  teachings  of  Socrates,  as  he  had  no  taste 
for  the  higher  and  more  abstract  parts  of  philosophy, 
and  therefore  he  assimilatqd  the  ethical  and  practical 
elements  of  the  thought  of  his  master.  Other  pupils  of 
Socrates,,  such  as  Plato  and  Euclid,  appeared  to  have 
derived  from  their  teacher  an  impulse  towards  meta- 
physical speculation,  of  which  Xenophon  shows  no 
trace.  He  was  throughout  his  life  a  practical,  sensible 
man  of  the  world,  Imbued  with  the  easier  and  more 
popular  Socratic  theories;  rather  too  fond  of  omens 
and  divination,  for  which  taste  he  quoted  the  authority 
of  his  master;  doubtless  much  cultivated  and  improved 
by  all  the  Socratic  discussions  to  which  he  had  listened, 
but  by  nolneans  to  be  reckoned  as  one  of  philosophers 
of  the  Socratic  "family." 

He  appears,  at  all  events,  to  have  regarded  Socrates 
as  his  mentor  and  adviser  in  the  affairs  of  life.  We 
have  from  his  own  pen*  the  following  account  of  the 
share  of  Socrates  in  determining  the  step  most  important 


*  Anabasis,  iii.  1. 


NOTICES  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  XENOPIION,  11 


of  all  in  the  career  of  Xenophon.  In  the  year  402  b.c. 
he  received  a  letter  from  a  Boeotian  frieud  named  Prox- 
enus,  urging  him  to  come  to  Sardis  and  take  service  under 
Cyrus,  the  younger  brother  of  Artaxerxes,  king  of  Persia. 
He  showed  this  letter  to  Socrates,  and  consulted  him 
•whether  he  should  go.  Socrates  thought  that  there  was 
a  risk  of  Xenophon's  getting  into  trouble  with  his  coun- 
trymen if  he  were  to  join  Cyrus,  who  was  believed  to 
have  given  assistance  against  them  to  the  Spartans.  He 
advised  him  to  go  to  Delphi  and  consult  the  oracle. 
Xenophon  went  accordingly  to  Delphi;  but  having 
made  up  his  ownmind  on  the  subject,  he  barred  dissua- 
sion by  evasively  asking  of  Apollo  * '  what  God  he  should 
sacrifice  to  in  order  to  perform  most  propitiously  the 
journey  which  he  had  in  his  mind  V*  The  oracle  directed 
him  to  sacrifice  to  "Jupiter  the  King."  Having  teiken 
back  this  answer,  he  was  reproved  by  Socrates,  but  told 
that  he  must  now  do  as  the  god  had  directed.  Accord- 
ingly he  performed  his  sacrifice,  and  crossed  the  archi- 
pelago to  Ephesus,  whence  he  proceeded  to  the  rendez- 
vous at  Sardis. 

In  this  story  we  see  amusingly  exhibited  the  willfulness 
of  the  youthful  Xenophon  and  the  practical  shrewdness, 
mixed  with  superstition,  of  Socrates.  There  might  be 
some  risk  of  unpleasant  consequences  from  taking  service 
under  Cyrus,  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  there  was  a  chance 
of  such  a  step  turning  out  well.  The  offers  of  Cyrus  had  a 
peculiar  fascination  for  the  soldiers  of  fortune  in  Greece ; 
and  Socrates,  even  as  a  practical  adviser,  may  have  been 
not  insensible  to  the  same  imaginative  influence.  He  fol- 
lowed his  own  maxim,  In  cases  of  doubt,  consult  the 
gods,"  and  dispatched  Xenophon  to  the  oracle  of  Delphi. 
The  oracular  response,  as  commonly  happened  in  such 
circumstances  only  confirmed  the  inquirer  in  the 


12 


XENOPHON, 


course  to  which  he  was  himself  inclined.  And  Xeno- 
phon  accordingly  joined  the  expedition  of  Cyrus.  He 
joined  it  neither  as  an  officer  nor  a  soldier,"  but  in 
an  unattached  capacity.  The  leading  events  of  that 
ill-fated  expedition  and  the  subsequent  adventures  of 
the  Greek  force  which  was  engaged  in  it,  will  occupy 
the  three  following  chapters:  and  with  all  these 
events  Xenophon  himself  was  so  completely  identified, 
that  the  account  of  them,  taken  from  his  Anabasis,  ' 
will  be  found  to  be  a  continuation  of  the  life  of  the 
historian.  .,  v'    1         a^' ^ 

,  ■      V    CHAPTER 'll. 

■    f  |  THE  EXPEDITION  OF  CYKUS. 

^  The  best  and  most  interesting  of  the  works  of  Xeno- 
J  phon  is  called  the  Anabasis."  This  name  signifies 
the  march  up-country,"  that  is,  from  the  sea  to 
Babylon,  and  is  only  applicable  to  the  first  part  of  the 
work.  The  book,  therefore,  is  misnamed,  as  it  is  far 
more  concerned  with  the  Catabasis,"  or  march  down 
to  the  sea  again."  Letting  this  pass,  the  "Anabasis" 
essentially  consists  of  three  parts:  1st,  The  Expedition 
of  Cyrus,  and  his  invasion  of  the  Persian  dominions; 
2d,  The  retreat  of  the  Greek  contingent  in  his  army  to 
the  Euxine;  3d,  The  vicissitudes  of  that  contingent 
when  they  had  got  back  among  Greek  towns,  but  still 
kept  together  as  a  mercenary  force.  These  three  divi- 
sions of  the  story  give  us  the  natural  headings  for  the 
present  and  two  subsequent  chapters. 

The  Cyrus  now  referred  to  is  of  course  not  Cyrus  the 
Great  (mentioned  in  the  Bible),  who  had  died  more 
than  a  century  previous  to  this  expedition,  and  who 
had  been  succeeded  by  Cambyses,  Darius  1.,  Xerxes  I. 


TUE  EXPEDITION  OF  CTIIUS. 


13 


(Aliasuerus),  Artaxerxcs  I.,  and  Darius  II.  (called 
Nothus),  who  was  father  to  Artaxerxes  II.  (called 
Mnemon),  and  to  Cyrus,  the  younger,  with  whom  we 
have  to  do. 

Darius  Nothus  came  to  the  throne  in  the  j^ear  423 
B.C.,  and  Cyrus  was  born  after  this  date.  He  was 
therefore,  less  than  tweuty-one  years  old  when  our 
story  begins.  Orientals  are  precocious,  and  early  au- 
thority matures  the  powers;  but  still  it  must  be  allowed 
that  he  was  a  young  prince  of  very  extraordmary  abilities, 
for  in  the  measures  by  which  lie  proposed  to  carry  out 
his  ambitious  projects,  he  quite  departed  from  the  tra- 
ditionary ideas  of  his  country.  He  was  the  favorite 
son  of  his  mother,  Parysatis,  who  encouraged  him  in 
expecting  to  supersede  his  elder  brother  and  succeed 
to  the  throne.  As  he  had  been  born  after  his  father's 
accession,  he  had,  according  to  Persian  custom,  a  supe- 
rior claim  to  his  brother,  who,  having  been  born  before 
the  accession,  ranked  as  the  son  of  a  private  person. 
But  Darius  Nothus,  his  father,  settled  it  otherwise, 
and  gave  Cyrus,  in  his  seventeenth  year,  the  satrapy  of 
Lydia,  Phrygia,  and  Cappadocia,  being,  in  short,  the 
greater  part  of  Asia  Minor,  while  he  nominated  Artax- 
erxes to  succeed  himself  on  the  throne. 

The  youthful  satrap  had,  from  the  first,  Greek  troops 
in  his  pay,  and  Greek  oiRcers  about  his  person.  He 
mixed  in  Grecian  politics,  and  assisted  the  Spartans  in 
their  war  against  Athens.  Just  before  his  father's 
death  (404  B.C.)  he  was  summoned  to  Babylon,  and, 
when  the  decease  had  occurred,  he  was  charged  with 
plotting  against  his  newly- crowned  brother.  He  was 
arrested  by  Artaxerxes,  and  would  have  been  put  to 
death,  but  his  mother  begged  his  life  and  sent  him 
back  to  his  province. 


14 


XENOrilON. 


Returning  in  disgrace  and  anger,  lie  organized  with 
secrecy  and  determination  his  plans.  He  collected 
more  Greek  troops  by  giving  out  that  Tissaphernes,  a 
neighboring  satrap,  had  designs  upon  the  Greek  towns 
in  Asia  Minor,  and  inviting  Spartan  soldiers  to  come 
over  for  their  defence.  He  employed  Clearchus,  a 
Lacedaemonian  exile,  Proxenus,  the  friend  of  Xenophon, 
and  other  Greek  adventurers  who  had  come  to  his 
court,  to  raise  a  force  for  him,  on  the  pretext  of  an 
expedition  against  Tissaphernes,  or  against  the  moun- 
taineers of  Pisidia.  Sardis  was  the  rendezvous,  Pisidia 
the  ostensible  object;  all  designs  against  Artaxerxes 
were  carefully  concealed.  And,  in  the  meanwhile,  the 
Great  King  himself  was  entirely  blinded  with  regard  to 
his  brother's  intentions.  He  thought  that  one  satrap 
was  going  to  make  war  on  another — a  circumstance 
entirely  beneath  his  notice! 

With  a  Greek  force  approaching  10,000  (they  became 
afterwards  rather  more  by  additions  on  the  way),  and 
with  a  native  army  of  100,000  men,  Cyrus  marched 
from  Sardis  in  the  early  spring  of  the  year  401  B.C. 
He  proceeded  in  a  south-easterly  direction,  as  it  was 
part  of  his  plan  that  his  fleet  should  co-operate  with 
him  on  the  south  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  and  the  route 
taken  was  that  which  would  have  led  to  Pisidia.  They 
marched  about  seventy  miles  to  the  Maeander,  which 
they  crossed  on  a  bridge  of  boats,  and  stopped  a  week 
at  the  wealthy  city  of  Colossae,*  where  reinforcements 
joined  them.  Proceeding  onwards,  they  reached  Celaj- 
11 86,  where  Cyrus  had  a  palace  and  a  vast  park  (Xeno- 


*  This  was  the  place  to  which  St.  Paul's  "Epistle  to  he 
Colosgiians  "  was  addressed.  A  fe\v  broken  columns  and  debrU 
now  ^lone  mark  its  site. 


THE  EXPEDITION  OF  CYRUS.  15 


plion  calls  it  by  the  Persian  name,  a  *' paradise") 
stocked  with  wild  animals,  which  he  used  to  hunt  when 
he  or  his  horses  required  exercise.  In  this  govern- 
ment house,"  which  he  was  destined  never  to  see  again, 
he  now  rested  for  a  month,  and  the  army  was  increased 
by  the  arrival  of  more  Greek  recruits.  The  Greek  con- 
tingent was  reviewed,  and  was  found  to  consist  of  11,- 
200  men. 

In  the  plains  of  Caystrus  three  months'  pay  became 
due  to  the  troops.  There  had  been  some  mistake  in 
the  arrangements,  and  Cyrus  was  in  perplexity,  when, 
most  opportunely,  he  was  joined  by  Epiaxa,  wife  of 
Syennesis,  king  of  Cilicia,  who  came  to  meet  him, 
bringing  a  large  sum  of  money  as  an  offering,  and  with 
this  he  paid  his  men.  With  the  Cilician  queen  in  his 
company  he  marched  on  to  the  city  of  Tyriaeum,  where, 
-at  her  request,  he  held  a  grand  review  of  his  army. 
After  the  native  battalions  had  marched  past,  he  di- 
rected the  Greeks  to  form  into  phalanx  and  exhibit  a 
charge.  This  they  did  so  effectually,  advancing  at  a 
run  with  their  spears  presented,  and  with  loud  shouts, 
towards  the  Persian  tents,  that  the  queen  and  her 
people  were  seized  with  alarm  aod  fled  from  the  field, 
while  the  Greeks  burst  out  laughing,  and  Cyrus  was 
overjoyed  to  see  the  terror  with  which  they  inspired 
his  countrymen. 

Advancing  by  Iconiura,  through  Lyaconia  and  Cap- 
padocia,  towards  Cilicia,  he  sent  Epiaxa  with  a  Greek 
escort  under  Meno,  a  Thessalian  captain,  to  go  by  a 
direct  route  over  the  mountains  into  her  own  country. 
Cyrus  himself  found  the  pass  over  Mount  Taurus, 
which  was  called  the  Cilician  Gates,  occupied  by 
Syennesis.  This  pass  being  a  narrow  defile  between 
rocks,  3600  feet  above  the  sea,  might  easily  have  been 


16 


XENOPHON. 


held;  but  Syennesis  (who  was  probably  acting  all  along 
in  collusion  with  Cyrus)  had  now  the  excuse  that  his 
flank  had  been  turned  by  Meno,  and  that  he  was 
threatened  on  the  other  side  by  the  fleet  of  Cyrus;  so 
he  evacuated  the  pass,  and  the  invading  army,  without 
resistance,  marched  through  the  Gates  of  Cilicia.  De- 
scending into  a  beautiful  plain,  they  came  to  Tarsus, 
even  then  a  large  and  rich  city,  afterwards  the  rival  in 
wealth,  literature,  and  science  of  Athens,  Antioch,  and 
Alexandria,  and  famous  for  all  time  as  the  birthplace 
of  St.  Paul. 

Here  it  seemed  as  if  the  expedition  would  come  to  an 
end.  For  it  was  now  clear  that  Pisidia  (which  they 
had  passed)  was  not  the  obiect  of  the  march;  the  Greek 
soldiers  suspected  that  they  were  being  led  against  the 
King;  they  said  that  they  had  not  been,  engaged  for  this 
service,  and  that  they  would  go  no  farther.  Clearclius, 
the  Lacedaemonian,  the  sternest  disciplinarian  and 
harshest  officer  in  the  army,  tried  to  force  his  men  to 
proceed.  They  at  once  mutinied,  and  he  narrowly  es- 
caped being  stoned.  Laying  aside  all  his  usual  imperi- 
ousness  of  manner,  he  stood  before  his  men  weeping, 
while  they  regarded  him  in  tacit  astonishment.  He 
then  broke  silence,  and  said  Do  not  wonder,  soldiers, 
at  my  grief,  for  Cyrus  has  been  my  friend  and  benefac- 
tor. I  was  anxious  to  serve  him  in  payment  of  his  past 
kindnesses  to  me.  But  since  you  are  unwilling  to  ac- 
company him  on  this  expedition,  I  am  reduced  to  the 
painful  alternative  of  abandoning  either  him  or  you. 
Whether  it  is  right  or  not,  I  have  made  up  my  mind 
what  to  do.  1  will  never  abandon  you.  Since  you  will 
not  obey  me  I  will  follow  you.  You  are  to  me  coun- 
try, friends,  allies.  Be  assured  that  wherever  you  go, 
I  shall  go  also."    The  attitude  thus  taken  by  Clearchus 


• 

THE  EXPEDITION  OF  GYRUS,  17 


at  once  restored  him  to  the  confidence  of  the  soldiers, 
more  especially  as,  when  Cyrus  sent  for  him,  he  adroit- 
ly refused  to  go.  His  next  step  was  to  invite  opinions 
as  to  the  course  it  would  be  best  to  pursue  under  the 
circumstances.  Clearly,  it  would  be  now  difficult  to  get 
home  without  the  consent  of  Cyrus,  and  a  little  consul- 
tation among  the  soldiers  showed  that  Cyrus  was  not 
likely  to  give  that  consent.  At  last  it  was  resolved  to 
send  a  deputation  to  the  Prince,  and  ask  what  was  really 
the  service  on  which  they  were  engaged.  Cyrus  had  an 
answer  at  once  ready  for  them.  He  said  that  he  ex- 
pected to  find  his  enemy,  Abrocomas,  twelve  days' 
march  forward,  on  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates.  If  they 
found  him  there  they  would  chastise  him ;  if  not,  they 
would  consider  then  what  was  to  be  done."  The  sol- 
diers were  not  really  dupes  of  this  particularly  vague 
answer.  But  Clearchus  had  played  them"  like  fishes. 
By  seeming  to  yield  he  had  conquered.  They  contented 
themselves  with  asking  higher  pay,  which  Cyrus  at  once 
granted,  raising  the  wages  of  each  soldier  from  about 
16  shillings  to  £1  4s.  per  month.  On  this  understand- 
ing, the  army  again  marched  forward  and  reached  Is- 
sus,  the  last  town  of  Cilicia  on  the  sea-coast.  Here  the 
ships  of  Cyrus  brought  up  some  reiuforcements,  and 
among  them  Cheirisophus,  the  Spartan  general,  with 
7000  men. 

Beyond  were  **the  gates  of  Cilicia  and  Syria,"  two 
fortresses  about  five  hundred  yards  apart,  with  a  stream 
flowing  between  them,  and  this  aperture,  being  the 
only  entrance  into  Syria,  was  one  of  the  most  de- 
fensible positions  in  the  whole  march.  Cyrus  had 
appointed  his  fleet  to  meet  him  here  to  assist  in  forcing 
it.  But  the  one  fortress  had  been  abandoned  by  Syen- 
nesis,  and  the  other  by  the  outpost  of  Abrocomas. 


18 


XENOPHOK 


and  the  Grecian  army  passed  through  these  gates 
also  unchallenged.  They  advanced  along  the  coast 
to  Myriandrus,  a  Phoenician  settlement.  This  was 
the  last  time,  for  many  a  long  day,  that  any  of  them  / 
were  destined  to  look  upon  the  sea.  Here  two  of/ 
the  Greek  captains  deserted  in  a  merchant  vessel. 
But  Cyrus  had  the  adroitness  to  make  capital"  out  of 
the  circumstance.  He  addressed  the  army,  and  showed 
that  he  might  easily  have  the  deserters  captured  by 
his  w^ar-galleys,  but  that  he  abstained  from  doing 
so.  **Let  them  go,  therefore,"  said  he,  "and  remem- 
ber that  they  have  behaved  worse  to  me  than  I  have 
to  them."  The  Greeks,  even  such  as  had  before  been  j 
disinclined  to  the  expedition,  on  seeing  the  generos- 
ity of  Cyrus,  now  accompanied  him  with  greater 
pleasure  and  cheerfulness.  Twelve  days'  march  from 
this  point  brought  them  to  the  large  town  of  Thap- 
sacus,  on  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates.  Here  a  halt 
was  made,  and  Cyrus  formally  announced  to  the  Greek 
captains  that  his  march  was  directed  to  Babylon, 
against  the  Great  King.  The  soldiers,  hearing  this,  felt 
or  feigned  anger,  and  declared  that  they  would  not  go 
forward  without  a  handsome  present.  Cyrus  at  once 
promised  to  give  every  man  five  minas  of  silver  (£20)  as 
soon  as  they  should  reach  Babylon;  and  while  they 
were  debating  on  the  offer  Meno  persuaded  his  men  to 
earn  favor  with  Cyrus  by  crossing  the  Euphrates  before 
the  rest  had  made  answer.  They  followed  his  advice, 
and  crossed  the  river  at  once.  Cyrus  was  delighted. 
He  sent  high  commendations  to  the  soldiers  and  secret 
presents  to  Meno;  and  then  marching  himself  through 
the  river,  he  was  followed  by  all  the  army.  In  passing 
the  stream  no  one  was  wetted  above  the  breast;  and  the 
people  of  Thapsacus  declared  that  the  river  had  nover 


THE  EXPEDITION  OF  CYRUS.  ID 


before  been  fordable  on  foot.  Every  one  said  that  "it 
was  a  divine  providence,  and  that  the  river  clearly 
made  way  for  Cyrus  as  the  future  king."  After  cross- 
ing the  Euphrates,  the  Cyreians  marched  for  nine  days 
along  its  left  bank  till  they  came  to  the  river  Araxes, 
one  of  its  affluents,  w^here  they  halted,  and  collected 
provisions  from  the  villages  to  serve  them  in  the  desert 
which  they  were  now  entering.  For  five  days  hence 
they  passed  through  what  Xenophon  cafts  ''Arabia,"  a 
country  level  as  the  sea  and  full  of  wormwood.  All 
the  other  shrubs  were  aromatic,  and  there  was  not  a 
tree  to  be  seen.  Here  they  found  wild  asses,  ostriches, 
bustards,  and  antelopes.  The  horsemen  of  the  army 
bad  some  sport  with  these.  They  found  the  flesh  of 
the  wild  ass  like  venison,  but  more  tender,  and  that  of 
the  bustard  delicious.  The  ostrich  by  its  running  flight 
entirely  beat  them,  and  not  one  could  be  caught. 
They  halted  at  the  river  Mascas,  and  again  laid  in  pro- 
visions before  entering  for  a  second  time  the  desert, 
which  lasted  for  a  march  of  thirteen  days,  during 
which  beasts  tiled  for  want  of  fodder,  corn  failed,  and 
the  soldiers  lived  entirely  on  flesh.  Cyrus  pushed 
along  over  this  part  of  the  way  with  the  utmost  ex- 
pedition. The  marches  were  forced;  and  at  one  place 
where  the  baggage-waggons  had  stuck  in  some  mud, 
Cyrus  impatiently  ordered  the  Persian  nobles  who 
were  round  him  to  assist  in  extricating  Ihem.  In  an 
instant  they  doft'ed  their  purple  cloaks,  and,  all  arrayed 
as  they  were  in  splendid  vests  and  embroidered  trous- 
ers, and  with  their  gold  chains  and  bracelets  on,  they 
plunged  into  the  mire  and  executed  his  orders. 

The  '*  Anabasis  "  was  now  nearly  concluded.  They 
came  to  Pylse,  or  *'the  Gates,"  a  defile  leading  from 
Mesopotamia  into   the  Babylonian  territory,  only  a 


20 


XENOPHOK 


hundred  and  eight  miles  north  of  the  great  city.  Op- 
posite to  this,  over  the  Euphrates,  was  a  town  called 
Charmande,  from  which  the  soldiers,  on  rafts,  got  pro- 
visions, and  wine  made  from  dates.  Here,  on  the  eve 
of  the  conclusion  of  the  march,  the  safety  of  the  whole 
army  was  endangered  by  a  brawl  between  the  soldiers 
of  Meno  and  those  of  Clearchus.  They  were  with 
difficulty  appeased  by  Cyrus,  who  assured  them  that 
•*  if  anything  goes  wrong  with  you  Greeks,  all  these 
natives  whom  you  see  about  you  will  instantly  become 
more  hostile  than  even  the  army  of  the  Great  King." 

As  it  was,  the  natives  who  were  with  Cyrus  con- 
tinued remarkably  faithful  to  him,  even  now  that  it 
was  getting  rather  nervous  work;  for  they  were  evi- 
dently close  to  the  King's  army,  and  the  country 
around  them  had  been  cut  up  by  cavalry  and  the 
forage  burnt.  One  noble  Persian,  however,  by  name 
Orontes,  endeavored  at  this  moment  to  go  over  to 
Artaxerxes.  This  man  was  a  born  traitor  and  syco- 
phant. On  two  previous  occasions  he  had  alternately 
plotted  against  Cyrus  and  whined  to  him  for  forgive- 
ness. He  now  volunteered  to  go  out  on  reconnaissance, 
and  at  the  same  time  sent  off  a  letter  to  the  King,  say- 
ing that  he  was  going  to  come  over  to  him  with  a 
thousand  of  the  Cyreian  horse.  But  the  messenger  to 
whom  he  entrusted  this  document  took  it  to  Cyrus. 
Orontes  was  arrested  and  taken  into  Cyrus's  tent, 
where  he  was  tried  by  a  council  of  seven  Persians 
and  Clearchus.  According  to  the  report  of  Xenoplion, 
Cyrus  gravely  and  temperately  stated  the  case  against 
him,  and  the  council  unanimously  condemned  him  to 
death.  Orontes  was  led  away  to  the  tent  of  a  confiden- 
tial eunuch,  and  ' '  no  man  afterwards  saw  him  either 
alive  or  dead." 


TUE  EXPEDITION  OF  CYRUS.  31 


Cyrus  now  advanced  cautiously  for  three  days 
through  the  Babylonian  territory.  At  the  end  of  the 
third  day's  march  he  held  a  midnight  review  of  his 
army,  expecting  that  the  King  would  give  him  battle 
next  day.  He  found  that  he  had  a  force  of  12,900 
Greeks  and  100,000  natives.  Reports  of  the  royal 
army  represented  them  as  1,206,000  strong!  But  Cyrus 
addressed  the  generals  and  captains  of  the  Greeks,  and 
assured  them  that  the  difference  of  numbers  was  of  no 
importance.  He  said,  I  will  tell  you  from  experience 
what  you  will  have  to  encounter — vast  numbers  and 
plenty  of  shouting  and  noise.  If  you  stand  firm,  I  am 
really  ashamed  to  tell  you  what  poor  creatures  you  will 
find  these  natives  to  be.  Only  be  men,  and  I  will  make 
those  of  you  who  wish  to  go  home  the  envy  of  your 
countrymen;  though  I  hope  that  many  of  you  will  elect 
to  remain  in  my  service." 

The  next  day  there  was  no  appearance  of  the  King; 
but  they  came  on  a  trench  which  had  been  dug  to  im- 
pede their  progress.  It  was  30  feet  broad  and  18  deep, 
and  stretched  for  more  than  40  miles  across  the  plain  of 
Babylon,  leaving  a  passage  of  only  20  feet  between 
itself  and  the  Euphrates.  '  But  even  this  laboriously 
constructed  obstacle  w^as  made  useless  by  being  left 
undefended;  and  the  Cyreian  army  marched  quietly 
through  the  narrow  passage,  and  concluded  the  day 
without  seeing  the  enemy.  Cyrus  now  sent  for  Silanus, 
the  chief  soothsayer  of  the  Greeks,  and  presented  him 
with  3000  darics  (£2600),  because  on  the  eleventh  day 
previous  he  had  foretold  that-  the  King  would  not 
fight  within  ten  days.  Cyrus  had  then  said,  "If  your 
prophecy  comes  true  I  will  give  you  ten  talents;  for 
unless  the  King  fights  within  ten  days  he  will  not  fight 
at  all." 


22 


XENOPUON, 


It  was  quite  natural  now  for  every  one  to  suppose 
that  Artaxerxes  had  abandoned  the  idea  of  resistance. 
So  from  this  the  army  advanced  in  loose  order,  many 
of  the  men's  arms  piled  on  beasts  of  burden,  and  Cyrus 
himself  riding  at  ease  in  a  chariot.  But  at  noon  on  the 
next  day  but  one  after  their  leaving  the  trench,  when  they 
were  at  a  place  called  Cunaxa,*  a  mounted  scout  came 
in  at  full  speed,  shouting  both  in  Greek  and  Persian 
that  the  King  was  coming  up  with  a  vast  army  in  battle 
array.  In  hot  haste  they  began  to  form,  thinking  that 
the  King  would  be  upon  them  before  they  should  have 
time  to  get  into  rank.  But  it  was  not  till  the  afternoon 
that  they  got  sight  of,  first,  a  white  cloud  of  dust, 
second,  a  sort  of  blackness  in  the  plain,  next  a  flashing 
of  brass;  and  then  the  spears  and  lines  of  men  became 
visible.  It  was  a  mighty  mass.  On  their  left,  opposite 
the  Greeks,  were  cavalry  in  white  armor,  troops  with 
wicker  targets,  and  Egyptians  with  long  wooden  shields 
reaching  to  their  feet,  while  before  the  line  at  intervals 
were  scythed  chariots  to  cut  through  the  ranks  of  their 
opponents.  In  the  centre  was  the  Great  King,  sur- 
rounded by  a  close  phalanx.  But  though  in  the  centre 
of  his  own  line,. that  line  was  so  immense  that  he  was 
actually  beyond  the  extreme  left  of  the  army  of  Cyrus. 
Despite  what  Cyrus  had  said  about  the  shouting  of  the 
natives,  they  now  came  on  quietly  enough,  with  a  slow 
even  step. 

The  right  of  the  Cyreian  line,  resting  on  the  Eu- 
phrates, consisted  of  the  Greeks,  commanded  in  their 
several  divisions  by  Clearchus,  Proxenus,  Meno  and 

*  This  name  is  nowhere  mentioned  by  Xenophon.  The  names 
of  battle-fields  are  often  left  at  first  imsettled.  It  is  given  by- 
Plutarch  (Artaxerxes,  c.  8).  The  spot  was  about  fifty  miles  from 
Babylon. 


THE  EXPEDITION  OF  GYRUS. 


23 


others.  To  tlie  left  of  them  was  the  native  force,  under 
Ariaeus,  a  Persian  general,  on  the  extreme  left,  and  with 
Cyrus  commanding  in  person  in  the  centre.  This 
young  pretender  to  the  throne  of  Persia  seemed  full  of 
hope  and  enthusiasm,  and  despised  all  precautions. 
While  all  others  wore  helmets,  he  presented  himself  for 
the  battle  with  his  head  uncovered. 

Riding  along  the  front  of  his  hne  with  a  small  staff, 
he  came  to  where  the  Greeks  were  stationed,  and  call- 
ing out  to  Clearchus,  told  him  to  lead  his  troops  against 
the  enemy's  centre,  where  the  King  was,  and  strike 
there;  "for  if,"  he  said,  **we  are  victorious  in  that 
quarter,  the  day  is  ours,"  As  the  event  showed,  this 
order  was  sound  enough;  and  if  Clearchus  had  had 
sufficient  contempt  for  his  opponents  to  carry  it  out, 
probably  the  course  of  subsequent  history  would  have 
been  changed.  But  iu  order  to  do  so,  the  Greeks  would 
have  had  to  pass  before  the  entire  line  of  the  enemy 
(less  than  half  a  mile  distant)  with  their  right  or  un- 
shielded side  exposed.  Secondly,  they  would  run  the 
risk  of  being  outflanked  on  the  extreme  left,  owing  to 
the  great  length  of  the  enemy's  line.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances, Clearchus  determined  in  his  own  mind  to 
stick  to  the  river,  which  protected  his  right  flank,  and  to 
charge  where  he  w^as.  So  he  merely  replied  to  Cyrus 
that  "he  would  see  that  all  went  right." 

In  the  meanwhile  Xenophon  (who  is  now  for  the  first 
time  mentioned)  rode  up  to  Cyrus  and  asked  if  he  had 
any  commands.  Cyrus  directed  him  to  tell  the  men 
that  the  omens  of  sacrifice  were  quite  favorable.  Just 
then  a  noise  was  heard  in  the  ranks,  and  on  the  Prince 
asking  what  it  was,  Xenophon  told  him  that  the  Greeks 
were  passing  the  watchword  of  the  day,  ''Jupiter  tJie 
Preserver  and  Victory."   On  hearing  this,  Cyrus  said, 


24 


XENOPHOK 


"I  accept  it  with  all  my  heart,"  and  rode  away  to  his 
own  station. 

The  Greeks  now  sang  the  paean,  and  began  to  advance 
against  the  enemy.  As  they  advanced,  their  line  fluc- 
tuated a  little,  and  those  who  were  thrown  out  began 
to  run,  and  gradually  all  took  to  running,  at  the  same 
time  raising  their  well-known  shout  to  Mars,  and 
rattling  their  spears  against  their  shields.  The  moral 
effect  of  this  astounding  charge  was  too  much  for  their 
native  opponents.  Before  the  Greeks  had  got  within  a 
bowshot  of  them  they  turned  and  fled,  and  even  the 
drivers  of  the  scythed  chariots  leapt  down  and  ran 
away,  leaving  their  horses  to  run  wildly  among  friends 
and  foes  alike.  The  entire  left  wing  of  the  King's 
army  was  routed,  and  the  Greeks  pursued  them  on  and 
on,  without  losing  a  man, — but  uselessly,  because  the 
centre,  with  Artaxerxes  in  the  midst,  w^as  still  untouched. 

Cyrus  observed  with  satisfaction  the  victorious  course 
,of  the  Greeks;  and  those  about  him,  with  Oriental 
flattery,  prematurely  saluted  him  as  king.  But  he  was 
not  carried  away.  He  kept  his  body-guard  of  600  horse- 
men drawn  up  in  close  rank,  and  steadily  watched  the 
movements  of  Artaxerxes.  Presently  the  Great  King, 
as  no  one  attacked  him  in  front,  showed  signs  of  wheel- 
ing round  as  if  to  take  the  Greeks  in  the  rear.  On  this 
Cyrus  moved  down  upon  him,  and,  charging  fiercely 
with  his  600  horse,  broke  through  and  routed  the  6000 
cavalry  that  formed  the  body-guard  of  the  King,  and 
killed  the  commander  with  his  own  hand.  In  the  eager- 
ness of  pursuit,  his  horsemen  got  dispersed,  and  only 
Cyrus,  accompanied  by  a  handful  of  men — chiefly  those 
who  were  called  his  table-companions" — bore  straight 
on  to  the  spot  where  Artaxerxes  was  exposed  to  view 
with  a  little  band  around  him.    Maddened  with  excite- 


THE  EXPEDITION  OF  CYRUS, 


25 


ment,  Cyrus  cried  out,  I  see  the  man!"  and,  rushing 
at  his  brother,  struck  him  an  ill-aimed  blow  with  his 
lance,  wounding  him  slightly  through  the  breastplate. 
At  the  same  moment  Cyrus  himself  was  pierced  by  a 
javelin  under  the  eye,  and  falling  from  his  horse  was 
slain.  Eight  of  his  chiefs  fell  around  him,  and  his 
faithful  eunuch,  seeing  him  fall,  threw  himself  on  the 
body,  and  clasping  it  in  his  arms,  was  put  to  death. 
The  head  and  the  right  hand  of  Cyrus  wen*  cut  off,  and 
all  his  native  troops,  composing  the  left  wing  of  the 
army,  took  to  flight,  and  retreated  to  their  camp  of  the 
night  before,  a  distance  of  eight  miles  from  the  battle- 
field. Thus  ended  the  battle  of  Cunaxa  (September  3, 
401  B.C.)  and  the  expedition  of  Cyrus. 

At  first  sight  there  is  a  halo  of  romjuice  over  the 
whole  enterprise,  not  unlike  that  which  surrounds  the 
ill-fated  Rebellion  of  1745.  And  as  the  generous  im- 
pulses in  our  nature  prompt  us  to  take  the  side  of  a 
gallantly  maintained  but  unfortunate  cause,  so  it  is 
difficult  not  to  sympathize  with  young  Cyrus  and  his 
Greeks,  as  against  the  Persian  King  and  his  over- 
whelming masses  of  inferior  troops.  And  yet,  after 
all,  the  attempt,  however  boldly  devised  and  ably  car- 
ried out,  was  only  an  act  of  treason  without  any  ade- 
quate justification.  The  expedition  of  Cyrus  was 
prompted  by  no  patriotic  or  public  motive,  but  solely 
by  personal  ambition  of  the  most  selfish  kind,  and 
was  nothing  short  of  fratricidal  in  its  intent,  being  di- 
rected against  a  brother,  who,  as  far  as  we  know,  had 
done  Cyrus  no  wrong,  except  that  of  being  his  senior, 
and  of  having  been  chosen  for  the  throne.  In  the  guilt 
of  these  motives  the  Greeks  were  not  implicated ;  they 
were  engaged  on  a  false  pretence,  and  were  not  informed 
of  the  real  nature  of  the  service  on  w^hich  they  were  to 


26 


XENOPIIOK 


be  employed,  till  it  was  virtually  too  late  to  withdraw 
from  it.  On  the  other  hand,  they  were  not  fighting  for 
a  cause,  but  for  pay;  they  were  not  like  the  Jacobites 
of  "the  '45,"  but  were  mercenaries,  whom  Cyrus  had 
retained,  just  as  an  Indian  prince  might  retain  a  body 
of  European  soldiers,  as  likely  to  beat  a  very  dispropor- 
tionate number  of  his  countrymen.  And  yet  there  was 
something  fine  in  the  relationship  between  Cyrus  and 
the  Greeks;  it  was  not  entirely  based  upon  considerations 
of  money,  but  consisted  greatly  in  personal  attachment. 
Cyrus,  young  as  he  was,  had  suflicient  greatness  of 
character  to  inspire  many  of  the  Greek  captains  with 
an  enthusiasm  for  his  person.  They  served  him,  as 
Xenophon  tells  us,  partly  from  regard,  and  partly  be- 
cause they  had  an  imaginative  notion  that  great  things 
were  to  be  achieved  in  his  service.  Cyrus,  unlike  most 
Orientals,  had  the  good  sense  to  see  the  policy  of  perfect 
good  faith  to  his  friends ;  he  led  the  Greeks  to  rely  on  him 
implicitly,  and,  unlike  one  with  despotic  traditions,  he 
treated  them  as  citizens,  on  a  basis  of  fair  reasoning  be- 
tween man  and  man.  Many  a  trait  does  Xenophon  re- 
cord of  his  behavior  en  bon  comarade.  It  is  true  that  all 
this  time  he  was  on  his  promotion,  and  therefore  on  his 
best  behavior.  But  there  was  something  really  Napo- 
leonic in  his  ascendancy  over  the  minds  of  men.  These 
powers,  thus  early  manifested,  might  have  had  a  for- 
midable influence  on  tlio  nffairs  of  mankind.  Xeno- 
phon justly  thinks  that  no  one  who  had  sat  on  the 
throne  of  Persia  since  the  great  Cyrus  could  have  com- 
pared in  ability  with  Cyrus  the  younger.  Mr.  Grote  is 
of  opinion  that,  if  he  had  succeeded  in  his  enterprise, 
he  would  successfully  have  played  the  game  of  employ- 
ing the  Greeks  against  each  other,  and  that,  forestalling 
the  work  of  Macedonia,  he  would  have  destroyed  the 


THE  RETREAT  OF  THE  GREEKS,  27 


independence  of  Greece  by  subjugating  her  to  Persia. 
Oh  the  whole,  then,  it  may  have  been  of  advantage  to 
the  interests  of  civilization,  that  Clearchus  did  not  bet- 
ter follow  out,  at  the  battle  of  Cunaxa,  the  instructions 
of  Cyrus. 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE  RETREAT  OP  THE  TEN  THOUSAND  GREEKS  TO 
THE  SHORE  OF  THE  EUXINE. 

The  Greeks  having  pursued  for  about  three  miles 
their  unprofitable  victory  over  the  left  wing  of  the 
King's  army,  halted ;  when  they  perceived  the  enemy 
advancing  towards  them  from  the  direction  of  their  own 
lines.  They  immediately  formed,  with  the  Euphrates 
in  their  rear,  and  having  sung  the  paean,  charged.  The 
Persians  fled  with  even  greater  precipitancy  than  be- 
fore. The  Greeks  followed,  without  overtaking  them, 
till  the  sun  set,  when  they  stopped  and  resolved  to 
march  back  to  their  tents.  On  arriving  there,  they 
found  that  the  camp  "had  been  plundered  by  the  King's 
troops,  and  that  all  their  provisions  were  gone.  They 
lay  down  fasting,  having  had  neither  dinner  nor  siipper 
during  the  day.  But  as  yet  they  had  not  heard  a  word 
of  the  death  of  Cyrus.  They  believed  him  to  be  victo- 
riouB  as  they  had  been,  and  they  looked  forward  to  the 
morrow  to  bring  them  the  reward  of  all  their  labors. 

At  sunrise  a  message  came  from  Ariseus,  the  Persian 
general  of  Cyrus,  who  had  fled  back  with  the  native 
army  to  the  camp  from  which  they  had  come  two  days 
befcJi'e,  saying  that  Cyrus  was  dead,  and  that  if  the 
Greeks  would  join  him  he  would  take  them  back  to  the 
coast  of  Asia  Minor,  but  that  he  would  not  wait  for  them 


38 


XENOPIIOK 


more  than  twelve  hours.  To  this  Olearchus  replied, 
*'  Would  that  Cyrus  were  alive!  but  since  he  is  no  more, 
tell  Ariaeus  we  have  beaten  the  King's  army,  and  that  if 
he  comes  to  us  we  will  set  him  on  the  throne  of  Per- 
sia." While  awaiting  an  answer  to  this  proposal,  the 
Greeks  slaughtered  the  bullocks  and  asses  which  had 
drawn  their  wagons,  and  with  them  made  a  breakfast. 

Ariseus  had  not  heart  enough  to  avail  himself  of  the 
chance  which  was  offered  him.  He  told  the  Greeks 
that  the  other  Persians  of  higher  rank  than  himself 
would  never  let  him  be  king.  But  he  swore  solemnly 
to  guide  the  Greeks  in  safety  back.  He  said  that  it 
would  be  impossible  to  return  by  the  route  on  which 
they  had  come,  for  they  would  not  he  able  to  get 
provisions  for  the  desert,  but  that  they  must  go  by  the 
northern  route,  which  lay  through  fertile  countries. 
To  begin  with,  he  led  them  eastwards  into  the  Baby- 
lonian territory.  This  was  an  alluvial  plain,  full  of 
villages,  and  which,  under  certain  circumstances,  might 
have  been  a  trap  for  an  army,  for  it  lay  between  the 
Euphrates  and  the  Tigris,  and  was  divided  into  paral- 
lelograms by  the  wall  of  Media'  and  four  successive 
ship  canals,  running  across  from  the  one  river  to  the 
other.  Ko  doubt  Ariseus  was  right  in  saying  that 
escape  would  bo  impossible  by  way  of  the  deserts  of 
Mesopotamia  and  Arabia.  But  it  is  not  likely  that  he 
really  meant  to  undergo  all  the  difficulties  of  conduct- 
ing the  Greeks  home  by  way  of  the  Tigris.  In  all 
probability  he  used  the  offer  of  the  Greeks  to  intimidate 
Artaxerxes,  and  to  obtain  an  amnesty  for  himself  'on 
condition  of  abandoning  his  allies,  which,  in  fact^  he 
immediately  did.  • 

In  the  meantime  the  vascillation  of  the  Persians  was 
wonderful.   They  not  only  did  not  attack  the  Greeks, 


THE  RETREAT  OF  THE  GREEKS. 


2^ 


but  instead  of  starving  them  in  the  barren  country, 
they  admitted  them  within  the  wall  of  Media,  where 
they  could  get  plenty  of  provisions,  and  where  they 
migHt  have  used  the  canals  and  rivers  as  defenses, 
which  would  have  enabled  them  to  hold  an  almost  im- 
pregnable position,  and  where  they  might  have  made  a 
military  settlement  threatening  the  very  existence  of 
the  reigning  dynasty.  Presently  this  danger  appears  to 
have  occurred  to  the  Persians,  and  with  it  the  expedi- 
ency of  making  a  golden  bridge  for  a  flying  enemy." 
For  they  sent  Tissaphernes  the  satrap  to  profess  friendly 
feelings  for  the  Greeks,  and  to  oifer  to  escort  them  back 
to  Greece.  Under  his  guidance  the  Greeks  crossed  two 
of  the  canals,  and  arrived  at  Sitace,  a  town  on  the  Ti- 
gris a  little  below  Bagdad.  Here  they  received  false 
information  that  the  Persians  were  going  to  destroy  the 
bridge  over  the  Tigris.  This  news  was  fabricated  with 
the  view  of  hurrying  them  out  of  Babylonia,  lest  at  the 
last  moment  they  should  resolve  to  settle  there.  The 
ruse  was  successful,  for  the  Greeks  guarded  the  bridge 
during  a  night,  and  next  morning  crossed  it  with  all  ex- 
pedition. 

Having  been  got  fairly  over  the  Tigris  into  the  prov- 
ince of  Media,  they  were  conducted  north-westward, 
along  the  river,  by  Tissaphernes,  for  ten  days,  partly 
through  a  desert  country,  and  with  only  two  remarkable 
incidents:  first,  that  they  met  an  illegitimate  brother  of 
Artaxerxes  bringing  up  a  large  army  to  assist  him,  and 
who  halted  his  troops  to  see  the  Greeks  pass  by.  Clear- 
chus,  being  aware  of  this,  made  his  men  march  two 
abreast,  so  that  his  line  seemed  almost  interminable, 
and  inspired  respect  in  the  minds  of  the  natives.  Second, 
that  on  arriving  at  some  villages  which  were  the  private 
property  of  Parysatis  (the  queen-mother,  who  had  fav- 


30 


XENOPHOK 


ored  the  cause  of  Cyrus),  Tissapliernes  allowed  the 
Greeks,  instead  of  purchasing  provisions  in  them,  to 
plunder  them. 

Soon  after  this  they  arrived  at  the  river  Zab,  which 
flows  into  the  Tigris.  On  its  banks  they  rested,  and 
here  Clearchus  resolved  to  have  a  conference  with 
Tissaphernes,  in  order,  if  possible,  to  put  a  stop  to  the 
feelings  of  mutual  suspicion  which  had  evidently  been 
arising  between  the  Greeks  and  their  Persian  conduc- 
tors. The  substance  of  the  discussion  which  took  place 
is  put  by  Xenophon  into  the  form  of  elaborate  speeches 
on  each  side ;  and  he  represents  Tissaphernes,  after  pro- 
fessing the  most  pure  and  beautiful  motives,  to  have 
wound  up  with  an  Oriental  compliment  to  the  Greeks, 
saying  that  while  the  Great  King  alone  was  allowed 
to  wear  the  upright  turban*  on  his  head,  any  other  man, 
who  had  the  Greeks  on  his  side,  might  wear  it  in  his 
heart.''  This  innuendo,  which  was  probably  used  in 
reality,  meant  that  Tissaphernes  had  such  an  admiration 
for  the  Greeks  that  he  could  not  quite  relinquish  the 
idea  of  making  himself  king  by  their  assistance.  It 
was  in  allusion  to  the  offer  which  had  been  refused  by 
Arigeus^  and  the  delicate  compliment  seems  to  have 
worked  so  powerfully  with  Clearchus  as  to  have  entirely 
thrown  him  off  his  guard.  In  spite  of  all  remonstrances 
of  cautious  persons,  he  accepted  an  invitation  to  go  to 
a  still  more  confidential  interview  with  Tissaphernes 
within  the  Persian  lines,  and  he  persuaded  four  gen- 
erals, including  Proxenus  and  Meno,  and  twenty  cap- 
tains, of  the  Greeks,  to  accompany  him. 

No  sooner  had  they  arrived  at  the  tent  of  Tissaphernes 
than  all  the  captains  and  the  small  guard  of  honor  that 


*  One  of  the  insignia  of  royalty  in  ancient  Persia. 


THE  RETREAT  OF  THE  GREEKS  31 


accompanied  them  were  cut  down,  and  the  generals 
were  seized  and  bound  and  sent  up  to  the  King.  Four 
of  them  were  immediately  put  to  death  by  beheading. 
Meno  alone  had  his  life  granted  to  him,  probably  on 
account  of  certain  traitorous  communications  which  he 
had  previously  held  with  Tissaphernes.  Xenophon, 
after  relating  these  events,  sketches  in  a  masterly  way 
the  characters  of  the  different  generals,  and  stigmatizes 
Meno  as  a  bad  and  ^'alse  man.  He  records,  with  appar- 
ent satisfaction,  that  Meno  was  ultimately  put  to  death 
with  lingering  tortures.  This  nemesis  was  due  to  the 
still  powerful  influence  of  the  queen-mother,  Parysatis, 
who  appears  to  have  played  the  part  of  a  vindictive 
Juno  towards  all  who  had  been  hostile  or  unfaithful  to 
her  favorite  Cyrus  and  his  Greeks. 

In  the  meantime,  one  of  the  guard  of  honor  having 
escaped,  wounded,  from  the  massacre,  brought  the 
news  of  it,  and  of  the  arrest  of  the  generals,  to  the  Greek 
camp.  The  receipt  of  this  intelligence  caused  great 
panic  and  depression  in  the  little  army,  w^ho  reflected 
that  they  were  isolated  in  a  hostile  and  treacherous 
country,  a  thousand  miles  from  home,  without  guides 
or  commissariat,  with  many  large  rivers  before  them, 
and  the  enemy's  cavalry  all  round.  Reflecting,"  says 
Xenophon,  **on  these  circumstances,  and  being  dis- 
heartened  at  them,  few  tasted  food  for  that  evening, 
few  kindled  fires,  and  many  did  not  come  to  the  place 
of  arms  during  the  night,  but  lay  down  to  rest  where 
they  severally  happened  to  be,  unable  to  sleep  for  sor- 
row and  longing  for  their  country,  their  parents,  their 
wives,  and  their  children,  whom  they  never  expected  to 
see  again."  The  feelings  of  the  Greeks  at  this  unhappy 
moment  might  be  compared,  to  some  extent,  with  those 
of  our  own  betrayed  army  at  Cabul  in  1843,  when  ou 


32 


XENOPHOK 


the  eve  of  their  despairing  attempt  to  regain  British  In- 
dia through  tlie  mountains,  the  snow,  and  the  enemy. 
But  the  Greeks  had  better  grounds  of  hope  left  to  them, 
for  their  military  prestige  was  quite  unimpaired.  They 
had  not  lost  a  man  except  by  foul  and  treacherous  mur- 
der, and  they  had  never  yet  found  the  native  troops,  in 
whatever  numbers,  able  to  stand  up  against  them. 

But  it  seemed  as  if  there  were  only  one  man  to 
whose  mind  these  encouraging  thoughts  suggested 
themselves.  And  that  man  was  Xenophon.  But  for 
him,  it  seemed  likely  that  the  Greeks  would  have 
abandoned  themselves  to  unresisting  despair.  Xeno- 
phon himself  considered  that  in  the  hour  of  panic  he 
received  a  special  inspiration,  and  a  divine  impulse  to 
act.  He  tells  us  that  in  the  dreadful  night  following 
the  murder  of  the  generals  he  was  visited  by  a  dream. 
He  dreamed  that  his  father's  house  had  been  set  on  fire 
by  lightning.  Full  of  Greek  superstition,  he  asked 
himself  the  interpretation  of  this  dream.  On  the  one 
hand,  he  thought  that  it  might  be  interpreted  favor- 
ably, as  indicating  "a  light  from  Jupiter."  On  the 
other  hand,  he  reflected  that,  as  Jupiter  is  King,  it 
might  portend  destruction  from  the  King  of  Persia." 
With  practical  good  sense  he  adds,  in  his  account  of 
the  matter,  that  a  dream  can  best  be  interpreted  by 
what  follows  it ;  and  what  actually  followed  in  this 
case  was  that  Xenophon  sprang  up,  awoke  the  surviv- 
ing generals  and  captains  of  the  Greek  force,  and  in 
spirited  language  addressed  them. 

He  reminded  his  countrymen  of  their  late  easy  vic- 
tory over  the  King*s  troops  at  Cunaxa,  and  of  the  glo- 
rious resistance  made  by  their  forefathers  to  the  armies 
of  Darius  and  Xerxes  at  Marathon  and  Salamis.  He 
pointed  out  the  utter  perfidy  and  falseness  of  every 


THE  RETREAT  OF  THE  GREEKS.  33 


one  of  the  Persians,  now  that  Cyrus  was  dead,  and  he 
earnestly  impressed  upon  them  that  they  must  trust  to 
no  one  but  themselves,  and  to  nothing  but  their  own 
swords  for  deliverance.  The  circumstances  under  which 
he  spoke  were  peculiar:  The  removal  of  Clearchus  had 
reduced  the  army  to  a  democracy,  and  in  such  a  body 
fair  reasoning  and  skillful  oratory  were  sure  to  be  effec- 
tive. By  means  of  them,  Xenophon,  in  this  midnight 
debate,  turned  the  hearts  of  all  like  one  man,  and  they 
unanimously  adopted  the  arrangements  best  calculated 
to  secure  their  retreat. 

Next  day,  having  burnt  their  carriages  and  tents, 
and  all  superfluous  baggage,  and  having  dined,  they 
formed  themselves  into  a  hollow  square,  with  the  bag- 
gage-bearers in  the  centre.  Cheirisophus,  as  being  a 
Lacedaemonian,  was  put  in  command  of  the  front ;  four 
of  the  captains  were  chosen  to  command  the  flanks; 
while  Xenophon  and  Timasion,  as  the  two  youngest, 
took  charge  of  the  rear.  In  this  order  they  crossed  the 
Zab,  marching  so  as  to  follow  upwards  the  left  bank 
of  the  Tigris.  The  cowardly  Persians  did  not  dare  to 
dispute  with  them  the  passage  of  the  Zab;  but  as  soon 
as  they  were  marching  on  the  other  side,  two  hundred 
cavalry,  and  four  hundred  archers  and  slingers,  came 
after  them  to  harass  their  rear.  Some  Greeks  were 
wounded,  and  they  had  no  means  of  retaliation,  having 
neither  horsemen  nor  slingers.  Xenophon,  however, 
actually  made  a  sally  on  foot  with  a  few  men  against 
the  Persian  cavalry,  who,  instead  of  cutting  him  off, 
turned  and  fled  as  soon  as  he  appeared.  The  Greek 
army,  thus  harassed,  only  marched  two  and  a  half 
miles  during  the  day,  when  they  got  to  some  villages. 
Here  Xenophon  set  to  work  to  make  use  of  the  lesson 
which,  he  said,  the  enemy  had  given  them.    With  the 


34 


XENOPHOK 


horses  that  they  had  with  them  he  organized  a  small 
troop  of  fifty  cavalry,  and  he  got  together  as  many  as 
two  hundred  Rhodians,  skilled  in  using  the  sling  with 
leaden  bullets  instead  of  stones.  During  a  day's  halt 
these  preparations  were  completed,  and  then  the  Greeks, 
starting  very  early  in  the  morning,  got  over  a  deep 
ravine  which  lay  in  their  course,  before  the  stupid 
Persians  had  taken  anj^-  measures  to  stop  them.  When 
they  were  fairly  over,  the  attack  on  their  rear  was 
recommenced,  but  this  time  with  1000  cavalry  and 
4000  archers  and  slingers.  The  Greeks,  however,  did 
not  as  before  passively  endure  the  annoyances  of  the 
enemy.  The  trumpet  sounded,  the  fifty  horsemen 
charged,  the  slingers  plied  their  weapons,  and  the  in- 
fantry advanced  to  their  support.  The  natives  at  once 
fled  in  confusion  to  tlie  ravine,  leaving  many  dead  on 
the  field,  whose  bodies  the  Greeks  mutilated  in  order 
to  strike  terror  into  the  enemy. 

They  were  now  allowed  without  molestation  to 
reach  the  banks  of  the  Tigris,  where  they  found  an 
ancient  deserted  city,  with  massive  walls.  This  the 
Greeks  called  Larissa,  which  was  a  common  name  for 
the  ancient  Pelasgian  towns  with  Cyclopean  masonry 
in  Thessally  and  elsewhere.  But  it  has  been  conjec- 
tured that  the  name  really  told  them  was  Al  Resen, 
and  that  the  city  was  the  Resen  of  Scripture.  At  the 
present  day  it  is  called  Nimriid;  and  it  was  here,  on 
the  site  of  the  Nineveh  of  antiquity,  that  Mr.  Layard 
brought  to  light  so  many  interesting  remains  of  the 
ancient  Assyrian  empire.  A  further  march  of  eighteen 
miles  conducted  the  Greeks  to  another  deserted  city, 
which  they  understood  to  be  called  Mespila.  It  was 
nearly  opposite  the  modern  Mossul,  and  appears  to 
have  been  originally  a  continuation  of  the  once  colossal 


THE  RETREAT  OF  THE  GREEKS.  35 


Nineveh  or  Ninus.  These  cities,  or  city,  had  been  de- 
vasted  by  Cyrus  the  Great,  and  abandoned  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  before  Xenophon  came  there. 

During  the  next  day's  march,  which  was  twelve 
miles,  Tissaphernes  came  upon  them  in  force.  He  had 
with  him  his  own  cavalry,  all  the  native  troops  who 
had  served  under  Cyrus,  and  who  had  marched  so  long 
as  comrades  to  the  Greeks,  the  division  of  Orontes,  the 
King's  son-in-law,  and  that  additronal  army  which  had 
been  brought  up  by  the  King's  illegitimate  brother,  and 
which  the  Greeks  had  seen  before.  These  vast  masses 
of  men  surrounded  the  Greeks  like  a  cloud  on  every 
side  except  the  front.  They  never  charged,  however, 
and  only  used  missiles.  The  Rhodian  slingers  and 
the  Greek  bowmen  immediately  answered  with  the 
utmost  effect,  never  missing  a  shot  in  such  dense  ranks, 
and  the  Persians  presently  retreated  on  all  eides. 

The  next  day  the  Greeks  altered  to  some  extent  the 
disposition  of  their  force,  as  the  single  hollow  square 
Was  found  too  inflexible  in  cases  of  narrow  roads,  hills, 
or  bridges.  For  more  easy  adaptation  to  such  circum- 
stances, they  formed  six  companies  of  one  hundred  men 
each,  subdivided  into  smaller  companies  of  twenty-five, 
each  under  its  own  officer,  with  directions  to  fall  be- 
hind or  close  up,  as  the  exigences  of  the  march  might 
require.  In  this  form  they  marched  for  four  days,  and 
on  the  fifth  came  to  some  hills.  On  commencing  the 
ascent  they  found  the  enemy  on  the  heights  above  them, 
and  they  saw  the  native  officers  flogging  on  their  men 
to  attack  them  with  darts,  stones,  and  arrows.  Many 
were  wounded,  and  their  advance  was  hindered,  until 
they  had  succeeded  in  sending  up  a  detachment  from 
their  right  wing  to  occupy  a  height  above  the  Persians, 
who,  thus  threatened,  desisted  from  the  attack,  and 


36 


XENOPIIOK 


allowed  the  Greeks  to  gain  a  place  which  Xenophon 
describes  as  "a  palace  amid  villages,"  which  can  still 
be  identified  *  in  the  modern  Zakhu.  It  was  a  satrap's 
palace,  "like  a  baronial  castle,  surrounded  by  the  cot- 
tages of  serfs  and  retainers."  Here  they  stayed  three 
days,  tending  the  wounded,  and  enjoying  the  satrap's 
stores  of  provisions  and  wine.  As  soon  as  they  started 
again  Tissaphernes  was  upon  them.  But  they  reached 
a  village,  which  served  them  as  a  defensive  work,  and 
enabled  them  to  keep  the  enemy  off.  When  night 
came  the  Persians  drew  back  for  six  miles,  because 
their  horses  were  always  picketed  at  night  by  foot-ropes 
(just  as  in  India  at  the  present  day),  and  could  not  be 
got  ready  suddenly;  so  they  kept  a  long  way  off  to 
avoid  surprise.  The  Greeks  took  advantage  of  this  and 
stole  a  march  upon  them  in  the  night,  and  did  not  see 
them  for  two  days. 

On  the  fourth  day  from  Zakhu  they  found  the 
enemy  in  front  of  them,  on  an  eminence  which  com- 
manded the  road.  Cheirisophus  halted  the  men  and 
sent  for  Xenophon,  who  came  galloping  up  from  the 
rear.  It  was  obviously  necessary  to  dislodge  the  Per- 
sians from  their  front,  as  Tissaphernes  with  his  army 
was  coming  up  behind.  Xenophon  offered  to  take  a 
select  detachment  from  the  van  and  centre  of  the  army, 
and  scale  a  height  which  commanded  the  hill  on  which 
the  enemy  were  posted.  He  proceeded  to  do  so,  and 
the  natives,  seeing  what  was  intended,  detached  some 
of  their  own  troops  to  occupy  the  summit  before  the 
Greeks.  There  was  thus  a  perfect  race  between  the  two 
detachments,  each  struggling  to  get  up  the  hill  before 


*  Mr.  Ainsworth's  "  Travels  in  the  Track  of  the  Ten  Thousand 
Greeks,"  p.  144. 


THE  RETREAT  OF  THE  GREEKS.  37 


the  other,  and  each  cheered  on  by  the  shouts  of  its 
own  army.  The  Greeks,  by  great  exertions,  won  the 
race  and  occupied  the  sumimit,  and  the  natives  at  once 
dispersed  from  their  position  on  the  line  of  march, 
leaving  the  passage  clear.  A  little  incident  which 
occurred  during  this  operation  shows  the  democratic 
spirit  of  the  Greek  army.  While  Xenophon  was  riding 
up  the  ascent  and  encouraging  the  infantry,  one  of  the 
soldiers  cried  out,  *'It's  not  fair,  Xenophon,  for  you  to 
be  riding,  while  I  have  to  go  on  foot  and  carry  my 
shield.'*  In  an  instant  Xenophon  jumped  from  his 
horse,  seized  the  man's  shield,  and  took  his  place  in 
the  rank,  struggling  on  with  the  rest.  But  his  heavy 
horseman's  corselet  distressed  him;  and  the  other  sol- 
diers abused  the  discontented  one,  and  threw  stones  at 
him,  till  he  was  glad  to  resume  his  shield,  and  Xeno- 
phon remounted.  Cheirisophus  and  the  army  marched 
onward  to  some  villages  on  the  Tigris,  where  Xenophon 
with  his  detachment  rejoined  them.  The  Greeks  were 
now  in  perplexity,  for  before  them  lay  high  mountains, 
and  on  their  left  the  Tigris  was  very  deep,  and  they 
could  see  cavalry  on  the  other,  side.  The  generals  held 
a  council  of  war,  and  carefully  questioned  their  prisoners 
as  to  the  different  routes.  Tiiej^  learned  that  to  go 
eastwards  would  lead  them  to  Susa  and  Ecbatana,  the 
summer  residence  of  Artaxerxes;  over  the  Tigris  to  the 
left  lay  the  direct  path  to  Lydia  and  Ionia;  the  moun- 
tains in  front  were  in  the  country  of  the  Carduchi 
(Kurds),  a  warlike  tribe,  not  subject  to  the  Great 
King.  The  route  over  these  mountains  would  lead 
into  the  rich  country  of  Armenia,  where  the  Tigris 
might  easily  be  forded  near  its  source,  and  whence  the 
Euxine,  leading  them  to  Greece,  might  be  reached.  This 
was  the  course  which  it  was  determined  to  take,  albeit 


38 


XENOPEOK 


it  was  now  the  middle  of  November,  and  full  late  in 
the  year  for  trying  mountain  passes.  Starting  during 
the  last  watch  of  the  night,  they  got  over  the  inter- 
vening plain  under  the  cover  of  darkness,  and  thus 
bade  adieu  to  Tissaphernes  and  his  Persians.  All  the 
light-armed  men  were  placed  in  the  front  under 
Cheirisophus,  who  led  them  over  the  first  summit 
before  the  Kurds  had  perceived  their  approach.  March- 
ing slowly  on,  they  occupied  some  villages  which 
lay  in  the  recesses  of  the  mountains,  and  which  the 
inhabitants  evacuated,  refusing  to  listen  to  all  pro- 
posals of  amity.  The  rear,  under  Xenophon,  consisting 
of  heavy-armed  men  and  baggage,  only  got  up  after 
nightfall,  and  suffered  slightly  from  an  attack  of  the 
Kurds,  which  might  have  been  serious  if  it  had  been 
made  in  greater  force.  ''Thus,"  says  Mr.  Ainsworth, 
''  they  accomplished  their  entrance  into  Kurdistan  with- 
out opposition,  and  crossed  one  of  the  most  defensible 
passes  which  they  were  destined  to  meet.  This  is  the 
point  where  the  lofty  mountain-chain — now  designated 
as  Jebel  Judi,  and  the  same,  according  to  Chaldean, 
Syriac,  and  Arabian  traditions,  as  that  on  which  the 
Ark  rested — comes  down  to  the  very  flood  of  the  Tigris, 
which  it  encloses  in  an  almost  impassable  barrier  of 
rock." 

The  Greeks  quartered  themselves  for  tlie  night  in 
the  Kurdish  houses,  which  they  found  well  stocked 
with  provisions,  and  with  an  abundance  of  copper  pots. 
The  hills  all  round  were  lit  up  with  the  watch-fires  of 
the  people.  In  the  morning  the  generals  determined  to 
diminish  their  encumbrances  by  abandoning  the  greater 
part  of  their  baggage-cattle  and  all  their  Persian 
prisoners.  Having  given  an  order  to  this  effect,  they 
took  their  stand  a*t  a  narrow  place  on  the  march,  and 


THE  RETREAT  OF  THE  GREEKS.  39 


inspected  all  that  was  being  taken  onVards.  They  thus 
turned  back  whatever  was  not  desirable  to  be  brought, 
but  Xenophon  implies  that  some  pretty  female  captives 
were  smuggled  through. 

'  For  the  next  two  days  the  Greeks  advanced,  through 
storm  and  rain  and  the  guerilla  attacks  of  the  Kurds, 
till  they  came  to  a  place  where  further  progress  seemed 
impossible,  as  a  lofty  pass  in  front  was  occupied  by 
the  enemy.  But  they  had  made  prisoners  of  two  of 
the  natives,  and  these  were  separately  questioned  as  to 
the  existence  of  any  other  route.  One  prisoner  denied 
that  there  was  any,  and  he  was  then  put  to  death  pour 
eiicourager  Vautre,  who  at  once  offered  to  conduct  them 
round  by  another  road,  but  said  that  there  was  one 
height  commanding  it  which  must  be  occupied  before- 
hand. Two  thousand  Greeks  volunteered  for  this 
service  and  started  in  the  evening,  Avhile  Xenophon 
made  a  feint  of  marching  along  the  direct  route,  which 
caused  the  Kurds  to  commence  rolling  down  masses  of 
stone  upon  it  from  above,  an  amusement*  which  they 


*  Stone-rolling  as  a  mode  of  attacking  the  traveler  seems  still 
in  vogue  among  the  Kurdish  mountain- passes.  Major  Millingen, 
in  his  "Wild  Life  among  the  Koords"  (1870),  records  that  in  a 
difficult  road  near  Lake  Van,  while  admiring  the  beauties  of  the 
landscape,  "  several  stones  began  to  roll  upon  us  from  the  side 
of  the  mountain.  This  seeming  at  first  accidental,  we  hastened 
our  paces  with  a  view  of  getting  clear  of  a  dangerous  spot;  but 
no  sooner  had  we  advanced  a  hundred  yards  farther  on  than 
more  stones  began  to  fall  all  round  us,  while  voices  could  dis- 
tinctly be  heard  from  the  heights  above.  Alarmed  at  the  pros- 
pect of  being  lapidated  to  death  before  the  journey  was  at  an 
end,  I  shouted  to  Beheram,  showing  him  a  little  creek  towards 
which  we  both  made  a  rush,  and  where  we  succeeded  in  finding 
shelter.  The  stones  continued  to  fall,  but,  fortunately  for  us, 
the  rocky  canopy  under  which  we  were  admirably  protected  us. 
Not  knowing  what  might  happen,  I  resolved,  as  we  could  se© 


40 


XENOPEOK 


continued  harmlessly  during  the  night.  In  the  mean- 
time the  party  of  two  thousand  effected  their  opera- 
tion. They  occupied  the  heights  pointed  out  by  their 
guide,  and  in  the  morning,  under  cover  of  the  mist, 
they  stole  on  the  Kurds  who  were  occupying  the 
direct  pass,  and  to  the  sound  of  the  trumpet,  and  with 
a  sudden  war-cry,  they  routed  them.  Cheirisophus 
and  his  men  at  the  first  trumpet  note  came  along  the 
direct  road  to  assist,  but  they  found  the  position  already 
evacuated  and  the  pass  clear.  Xenophon,  however, 
went  round  by  the  circuitous  route,  as  it  was  better 
suited  for  the  baggage  cattle.  He  had  several  skir- 
mishes by  the  way,  but  at  last  joined  the  main  body, 
when  Cheirisophus  and  he  parleyed  with  the  natives, 
who  agreed  to  give  up  the  dead  bodies  of  all  slain 
Greeks  in  exchange  for  the  prisoner  who  had  served  as 
guide.  Funeral  rites  were  accordingly  performed  over 
those  of  their  comrades  who  had  fallen  by  the  formid- 
able arrows  of  the  Kurds.  The  privilege  of  discharging 
this  melancholy  duty  was  purchased  at  the  cost  of  their 
only  guide,  a  heavy  sacrifice  in  an  unknown  country. 
But,  nevertheless,  they  fought  their  way  gallantly 
through  the  passes.  Whenever  the  vanguard  was 
opposed,  Xenophon  ascended  the  mountains  from  be- 
hind, and  outflanked  the  enemy  ;  and  whenever  the 
rear  was  attacked,  Cheirsosphus  performed  a  similiar 
service  from  the  front.  Thus  they  painfully  advanced; 
and  on  the  seventh  day  after  first  entering  the  moun- 
tains they  emerged  on  an  open  plain,  and  saw  before 
them  the  river  Centrites  (now  called  the  Bub  tan- 
nothing  of  the  caravan,  on  firing  two  shots  of  my  revolver, 
which  our  people  would  take  as  signals  of  distress.  The  signal 
was  soon  answered  by  our  men,  and  several  detonations  of  fire- 
arms announcsd  a  speedy  relief." 


THE  RETREAT  OF  THE  GREEKS.  41 


ch^i),  which  separated  Kurdistan  from  Armenia.  Dur- 
ing these  seven  days  they  had  suffered  more  miseries 
than  all  which  the  King  and  Tissaphernes  had  in- 
flicted put  together.  But  now  they  joyfully  rested 
in  the  villages  on  the  plain,  and  in  all  comfort  re- 
"  called  the  troubles  and  dangers  which  they  had  passed 
through. 

The  next  day  anxiety  returned,  for  over  the  river 
(which  was  two  hundred  feet  broad)  they  could  see 
the  opposite  bank  lined  with  the  cavalry  and  infantry 
of  the  satrap  of  Armenia,  and  a  large  body  of  Kurds 
was  collecting  in  their  rear.  The  river,  too,  seemed  to 
he  unfordable.  But  Xenophon  in  the  night  had  an 
encouraging  dream:  he  dreamed  that  he  had  been 
bound,  but  that  his  fetters  fell  off  of  their  own  accord; 
and  next  morning  while  he  was  at  breakfast,  two 
young  men  brought  him  word  that  they  had  discovered 
a  ford  in  a  place  where  the  rocks  would  prevent  cavalry 
from  acting.  After  a  libation  of  gratitude  to  the  gods, 
the  dispositions  for  crossing  were  made.  Cheirisophus 
was  to  lead  the  vanguard,  followed  by  the  baggage, 
across  the  ford;  while  Xenophon  with  the  rearguard 
was  to  make  a  feint  of  crossing  directly  opposite  the 
satrap's  troops,  so  as  to  threaten  them  and  engage  their 
attention.  This  plan  was  carried  out,  and  the  native 
troops,  seeing  two  separate  forces  apparently  crossing, 
were  afraid  of  being  surrounded;  and  hearing  the  paean 
and  the  shouts  of  the  men  under  Cheirisophus,  swollen 
by  the  voices  of  the  Greek  women,  of  whom  there 
were  a  good  many  in  the  army,  they  were  seized  with 
panic,  and  retreated,  leaving  the  other  side  of  the  river 
clear.  Xenophon  had  now  only  to  make  a  lively 
demonstration  against  the  Kurds  who  had  come  to 
attack  him,  and  on  their  flight  he  was  enabled  to  lead 


43 


XENOPIIOK 


his  men  with  all  speed  accross  the  true  ford,  and  then 
all  the  Greeks  were  safe  on  the  other  side. 

They  were  now  on  the  table-lands  of  Armenia,  and, 
pushing  on  rapidly  in  a  north-easterly  direction,  soon 
rounded  the  springs  of  the  Tigris,  and,  passing  not  far 
to  the  west  of  Lake  Yan,  came  in  five  or  six  days'  "* 
march  to  a  pretty  stream  wdiich  Xenophon  calls 
Teleboas,  the  banks  of  which  are  studded  with  vil- 
lages. Here  the  satrap  Tiribazus  came  up  with  them, 
and  invitiDg  a  conference  with  the  generals,  he  gave 
them  leave  to  pass  through  the  country,  on  condition 
of  their  taking  only  necessary  supplies,  without 
burning  the  villages.  They  proceeded  accordingly, 
being  constantly  followed  by  the  satrap  and  his  troops. 
In  three  days  they  reached  the  government  house  of 
Tiribazus,  anxiety  about  which  had  probably  been  the 
cause  of  his  conciliating  them,  and  they  made  them- 
selves at  home  in  the  surounding  hamlets.  They 
were  now  about  4000  feet  above  the  sea,  and  it  was 
near  the  end  of  November.  The  sight  of  watch-fires 
in  the  neighborhood,  and  other  signs  of  hostility 
caused  the  army  to  bivouac  together  in  the  open  air. 
But  vast  quantities  of  snow  fell  during  the  night, 
covering  men  and  beasts,  and  in  the  morning  they 
were  numbed  with  cold,  and  Xenophon  had  to  set  the 
example  of  rising  to  cut  firewood.  Then  they  lit 
many  fires,  and  the  men  anointed  themselves  with 
unguents  which  they  found  in  the  villages.  After  this 
they  sent  out  a  clever  ^reek  captain  with  some  men  to 
men  to  reconnoitre,  and  they  succeeded  in  bringing  in 
a  Persian  captive.  This  man,  being  questioned,  told 
them  what  troops  the  satrap  had,  and  that  he  was  pre- 
paring to  intercept  them  in  a  pass  which  lay  upon  their 
line  of  marcli. 


THE  RETREAT  OF  THE  GREEKS.  43 


With  the  greatest  energy  the  generals  determined 
to  sally  forth  and  attack  Tiribazaus  where  he  was,  before 
he  could  occupy  the  pass.  They  succeeded  in  doing 
so.  They  surprised  his  camp  among  the  mountains, 
killed  some  of  his  men,  dispersed  the  rest,  took  his 
tent,  his  horses,  and  his  couches  with  silver  feet,  and 
made  prisoners  of  his  bakers  and  cupbearers.  The 
next  day  they  pushed  forward  with  the  utmost  ex- 
pedition, and  got  through  the  pass  which  was  to  have 
been  held  against  them.  Marching  through  deep 
snow  for  three  days,  they  came  to  what  is  now  called 
the  Murad  su,  being  the  easterly  branch  of  the  Eu- 
phrates, which  they  forded,  the  water  not  coming  above 
their  middle. 

During  the  next  four  days  they  made  about  fifty 
miles  over  an  exposed  plain,  from  the  Euphrates  to  a 
cluster  of  villages  in  the  Armenian  uplands,  at  a  place 
DOW  called  Khanus.  In  these  four  marches  they 
endured  great  sufferings.  The  snow  was  often  six  feet 
deep;  there  was  a  parching' north  wind  which  blew 
directly  in  their  faces,  their  provisions  were  very  scanty, 
and  the  enemy  from  time  to  time  harassed  their  rear. 
Added  to  this,  when  we  remember  that  they  had  only 
the  ordinary  light  dress  of  the  Greek — Greek  sandals 
with  thongs  between  the  toes,  and  no  stockings — we 
may  well  admire  the  hardihood  shown  by  these  sons 
of  the  palaestra.  But  several  of  them  died,  as  well  as 
slaves,  and  baggage-cattle  in  large  numbers.  Many  got 
snow-blindness,  others  lost  their  toes  by  mortifi-cation, 
and  many  suffered  from  what  Xenophon  calls  bulimia 
(literally  ravenous  hunger),  which,  however,  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  a  distinctive  disease,  but  only 
excessive  faintness  and  inertia  from  long  fasting  in  the 
cold.    Xenophon  had  the  greatest  difiiculty  in  bring- 


44 


XENOPIION. 


ing  up  the  stragglers,  many  of  whom  wished  to  be  left 
to  their  fate.  One  party  of  them  discovered  a  hot 
spring,  from  which  it  was  difficult  to  get  them  to 
move. 

Cheirisophus  and  the  vanguard  of  course  got  first  to 
the  villages,  where  they  made  themselves  comfortable 
in  the  underground  houses  of  the  inhabitants,  and 
where,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  country,  they 
sucked  barley- wine*'  through  reeds  out  of  tubs, 
which  had  the  grains  of  barley  floating  about  in  them. 
This  ''barley -wine"  is  in  general  considered  to  have 
been  beer,  but  the  terms  in  which  Xenophon  describes  ^ 
it  would  seem  more  applicable  to  whisky.*  He  says, 
"The  liquor  was  very  strong,  unless  one  mixed  water 
with  it,  and  a  very  pleasant  drink  when  one  was  ac- 
customed to  it." 

The  rear  came  up  by  degrees,  and  fared  equally  well, 
feasting  on  all  kinds  of  meat  which  the  villagers,  who 
had  not  retreated,  hospitably  served  up  to  them. 
They  found  many  horses  which  were  being  bred  as  a 
tribute  for  the  Great  King,  and  Xenophon  and  the 
other  officers  got  a  remount.  They  remained  for  a 
week  restoring  their  exhausted  energies,  and  then  set 
forth,  taking  the  head-man  of  one  of  the  villages  as 


*  Major  Millingen,  in  his  "Wild  Life  Among  the  Koords,"  p. 
13l,  etc.,  mentions  many  customs  still  existing  among  the 
Kurdish  and  Armenian  villages,  exactly  corresponding  with  the 
descriptions  of  Xenophon.  He  says,  ''My  researches  have,  I 
think,  put  beyond  doubt  the  accuracy  of  Xenophon's  state- 
ments, and  are  of  the  nature  to  show  the  historical,  geographical, 
and  ethnological  importance  which  is  to  be  attached  to  the 
accounts  handed  down  to  posterity  by  that  illustrious  writer. 
Every  phrase,  every  word  of  his,  is  found,  after  an  interval  of 
twenty-three  centuries,  to  be  of  the  most  scrupulous  exactitude, 
leaving  no  room  for  doubt  and  controversy."    Finding  in  one 


TEE  RETREAT  OF  THE  GREEKS.  45 


their  guide;  but  after  a  day  or  two  this  man,  having 
beea  struck  by  Cheirisophus,  ran  away. 

Owing  to  this  they  did  not  make  a  very  straight 
course  during  their  next  nine  days'  march,  which 
brought  them  to  the  foot  of  a  formidable  pass,  guarded, 
as  they  could  see,  by  the  people  of  the  country.  Here 
a  council  of  war  was  held,  in  whicli  some  lively  banter 
occurred  between  Cheirisophus  and  Xenophon.  The 
former  was  for  marching  straight  at  the  enemy,  and 
cutting  their  way  through;  Xenophon  recommended 
that  in  the  night  they  should  send  a  detachment  lo 
occupy  the  heights  above  the  enemy.  *'But  this,"  he 
added,  "would  be  stealing  a  march,  and  in  any  ques- 
tion about  stealing  I  am  diffident  in  speaking  before 
Lacedaemonians,  who,  it  is  well  known,  are  trained  in 
this  art  from  their  boyhood."  To  this  Cheirisophus  re- 
torted that  "he  understood  the  Athenians  also  were 
pretty  skillful  in  stealing  the  public  money.  Their  men 
in  office  invariably  did  so,  and  doubtless  Xenophon 
himself  was  well  skilled  in  the  accomplishment:  he  had 
better  now  give  them  a  specimen  of  his  powers." 
Xenophon  justified  the  ambiguous  compliment  by  pro- 
ducing two  natives  whom  he  had  caught  by  an  ambush, 
and  who  would  serve  as  guides  in  scaling  the  mountains, 
A  night  expedition  was  organized,  which  was  perfectly 
successful.  They  occupied  a  height,  and  in  the  morn- 
ing descended  on  the  flank  of  the  enemy,  while  Cheir- 


house  a  cemented  cistern.  Major  Millingen  (p.  128)  inquired  its 
use.  "  The  answer  was,  that  almost  every  family  throughout 
the  country  had  those  things.  The  Mussulmans  make  use  of  the 
cistern  to  extract  from  barley  a  liquor  known  all  through  the 
East  by  the  name  of 'bozat,'a  fermented  sort  of  malt  liquor. 
The  Armenian  giaours,  my  interlocutors  said  humorously,  em- 
ploy their  cisterns  to  make  wine  and  'raki '  (whisky)." 


46 


XEKOrilON. 


isophus  attacked  them  in  front,  so  that  they  were 
speedily  routed  with  slaughter.  After  erecting  a  trophy 
on  the  pass,  they  marched  over  it  to  some  well-pro- 
visioned villages. 

Their  next  adventure  was  with  the  Taochians,  a 
people  of  Georgia,  who  lived  not  in  villages  but  in  hill- 
forts,  in  which  all  their  provisions  and  cattle  were 
stored.  The  Greeks,  after  five  days'  march,  wheti 
their  stores  were  exhausted,  came  to  one  of  these  strong- 
holds, which  necessity  compelled  them  to  wish  to  enter. 
The  only  access  to  this  place  was  guarded  by  the  natives, 
who  rolled  down  masses  of  rock  from  above.  A  sys- 
tem, however,  of  judicious  feints  made  by  the  Greek 
captains  caused  the  enemy  to  exhaust  their  ammunition, 
and  then  the  Cyrians  gained  the  ascent,  which  was  no 
longer  defended  by  the  natives.  But  a  dreadful  scene 
ensued,  for  the  Taochian  women  first  threw  their  chil- 
dren over  the  precipice,  and  then  leapt  to  destruction 
themselves,  being  followed  by  the  men.  One  of  the 
Greeks,  trying  to  hold  back  a  native  chief  dressed  in  a 
rich  garment,  was  drawn  after  him,  and  both  were 
dashed  to  pieces.  This  wholesale  and  determined  sui- 
cide prevented  the  army  taking  many  prisoners,  but 
they  got  plenty  of  cattle  and  sheep. 

From  this  they  passed  into  the  country  of  the 
Chalybes,  another  Georgian  tribe.  This  people  was 
famed  in  antiquity  for  trafiic  in  the  iron  which  they 
found  abundantly  in  their  mountains.  They  have 
thus  given  their  name  to  the  chalybeate  springs"  of 
modern  watering-places.  Xenophon  says  that  these 
were  the  bravest  warriors  that  they  had  encountered  in 
their  march.  They  carried  immense  spears,  twenty-two 
feet  long,  and  short  curved  knives  (like  the  kookaries 
of  the  Goorkhas),  with  which  they  cut  off  the  heads 


Till':  RETREAT  OF  THE  GREEKS.  ^ 


of  all  whom  they  could  overpower.  For  seven  days 
they  harassed  the  rear  of  the  Greeks,  who,  as  they 
also  kept  all  their  provisions  in  hill-forts,  could  get 
nothing  in  their  country. 

But  the  beginning  of  the  end  was  now  come  in  the 
retreat  of  the  Ten  Thousand,  for  in  a  few  days  they 
arrived  at  the  large  and  wealthy  city  of  Gymnias, 
thought  by  some  to  correspond  to  the  Erzerum  of 
modern  times.  Here  the  governor  sent  out  a  guide 
to  conduct  them  through  a  country  with  which  his 
own  people  were  at  war.  And  the  guide  told  them 
that  in  five  days  he  would  lead  them  to  a  place  whence 
they  could  see  the  Euxinc,  and  that  if  he  failed  in  this 
they  might  kill  him.  As  soon  as  they  had  entered 
the  hostile  country,  he  exhorted  them  to  burn  and 
plunder,  which  doing,  they  marched  on.  And  on  the 
fifth  day  they  came  to  the  mountain  called  Theches, 
held  sacred  in  the  neighborhood;  and  when  the  front 
ranks  had  reached  the  summit  and  caught  sight  of  the 
sea,  they  raised  a  great  shout.  Xenophon  and  the 
rear-guard,  hearing  it,  thought  that  the  army  w\is  being 
attacked  in  front,  for  the  people  whose  country  they 
had  devastated  were  hanging  about  them.  But  the 
noise  continually  increased,  as  fresh  men  kept  getting 
to  the  top  and  immediately  joined  in  the  shouts  of 
the  others,  and  Xenophon  thought  something  extra- 
ordinary must  have  happened.  So,  mounting  his 
horse,  he  took  the  cavalry  with  him,  and  galloped 
forward  to  give  aid,  when  presently  they  made  out  that 
the  soldiers  were  shouting  ''Thalatta!  Thalatia  T — 
"The  Sea!  The  Sea!"  and  cheering  one  another. 
Then  all  began  to  run,  rear-gnard  and  all;  and  the 
baggage-cattle  and  horses  were  put  to  their  speed. 
And  when  all  had  got  to  the  top,  the  men  embraced 


48 


XENOPHOK 


each  other,  and  embraced  their  generals  and  captains, 
weeping.  And  on  a  sudden  impulse  they  brouglit 
stones,  and  raised  a  mighty  mound,  aud  made  on  it  a 
trophy  decorated  with  the  hacked  shields  of  their 
enemies,  to  commemorate  their  deliverance.  And 
then,  to  reward  their  guide  for  fulfilling  his  promise, 
they  loaded  him  with  presents  from  the  public  stock, 
while  many  soldiers  pulled  the  rings  off  their  fingers 
and  gave  them  to  him,  and  thus  sent  him  away 
rejoicing. 

Such  was  the  famous  incident  which  has  so  struck 
the  fancy  of  the  world,  that  the  shout  of  the  Greeks 
on  this  occasion  has  become  a  household  word  for 
subsequent  ages.  Xenophon  records  the  scene  in  the 
most  simple  terms,  merely  as  an  outward  fact,  without 
adding  a  single  sentiment  or  reflection  of  his  own. 
On  the  one  hand,  this  may  be  regarded  as  a  stroke  of 
high  art,  which  would  dictate  simplicity  in  relating 
what  was  in  itself  so  touching;  on  the  other  hand,  it 
was  a  part  of  that  Greek  reserve  and  concentration  of 
style  which  forms  so  great  a  contrast  to  the  Gothic 
sentimenjalism  of  modern  times,  and  which  led  Xeno- 
phon to  narrate  the  march  through  so  many  wild  and 
impressive  mountain-passes  without  a  word  of  allusion 
to  the  grandeur  of  the  scenery.  But  he  doubtless  felt 
instinctively,  without  developing  into  words,  all  that 
was  implied  to  his  comrades  in  their  first  returning 
glimpse  of  the  sea.  Universally  to  the  Greeks  the  sea 
was  the  emblem  of  home,  or  of  easy  access  to  their 
home.  To  be  taken  far  up  country,  deep  into  the 
continent  of  Asia,  had  always  hitherto  been  a  thought 
of  vague  fear  to  the  Greek  soldier,  while  he  was  ready 
for  anything  within  a  short  distance  of  the  coast.  No 
Greek  force  before-  the  Ten  Thousand  had  ever  ven- 


THE  RETREAT  OF  THE  GREEKS.  49 


tured  anything  like  so  far  away  from  the  ^gean;  and 
they  had  gone  not  of  deliberate  purpose,  but  being 
hired  on  gradually  under  the  influence  of  Cyrus.  The 
silver  gleam  of  the  distant  Euxine  was  to  them  the 
restoration  of  the  object  of  long  yearnings,  and  sudden 
relief  and  ecstasy  found  a  vent  in  the  spontaneous 
shout  of  Thalatta!  and  in  passionate  tears. 

Full  of  the  thoughts  of  fatherland,  and  ''of  child 
and  wife  and  slave,"  all  which  had  hitherto  seemed  so 
far  but  now  so  near,  the  Greeks  pursued  their  course, 
and  arrived  at  a  stream  separating  them  from  the 
country  of  the  Macrones,  where  they  found  a  hostile 
array  drawn  up  to  oppose  their  crossing.  But  in  the 
army  was  a  soldier  who  belonged  to  this  very  tribe, 
from  which  he  had  been  taken  when  a  boy  as  a  slave 
to  Athens.  He  had  not  forgotten  his  native  tongue, 
and  was  able  to  assure  his  people  that  the  Greeks 
meant  them  no  harm.  So  after  mutual  pledges  of 
amity,  the  Macrones  conducted  them  for  three  days 
through  their  land,  to  the  boundaries  of  the  Col- 
chians. 

Here  on  the  pass  over  a  lofty  range  a  native  force 
was  stationed  to  meet  them.  The  generals  took 
counsel  together  as  to  the  best  means  of  conducting 
the  attack;  and  it  was  decided  not  to  attack  in  line, 
but  in  a  series  of  columns  extending  by  short  intervals 
over  the  whole  of  the  enemy's  line.  When  the  men 
had  been  put  into  this  form,  Xenophon  rode  along  the 
front,  and  addressed  to  them  the  following  pithy  exhor- 
tation: **  Soldiers,  these  men  whom  we  have  before 
us  are  the  only  obstacle  in  the  way  of  our  being  where 
we  have  so  long  been  striving  to  be.  If  possible,  we 
must  eat  them  alive."  The  soldiers,  after  hearing  these 
words,  made  vows  of  sacrifices  to  the  gods  in  case  of 


50 


XENOPHOK 


success;  and  having  sung  the  psean,  they  commenced 
the  charge  in  eighty  columns,  with  archers  and  skir- 
mishers on  their  flanks.  The  enemy,  seeing  their  wings 
threatened,  drew  off  men  to  the  right  and  left,  and 
actually  left  a  gap  in  their  centre,  at  which  the  Greeks 
dashed  at  full  speed.  The  sight  of  the  Greeks  running 
was  too  much  for  the  Colchians,  who  now  fled  in  all 
directions;  while  the  Greeks,  rejoicing  in  their  blood- 
less victory,  marched  over  the  pass  into  some  aban- 
doned villages. 

In  these  villages  their  last  adventure  occurred.  It 
consisted  in  their  finding  a  quantity  of  bee -hives,  from 
which  they  ate  the  honey  abundantly.  But  the  honey 
was  of  a  kind  common  to  this  day  in  Asia  Minor,  made 
from  a  species  of  rhododendron,  or  from  the  common 
rose  laurel  {nerium  oleander),  and  having  intoxicating 
and  poisonous  qualities.  From  the  effects  of  this 
honey  large  numbers  of  the  soldiers  fell  stupefied  or 
maddened  to  the  ground,  and  for  two  or  three  days 
they  were  Tiors  de  combat,  but  at  the  end  of  that  time 
all  recovered. 

Two  more  marches  brought  them  down  to  the  sea, 
at  Trapezus  (now  Trebizond),  a  large  Greek  city  on  the 
coast  of  the  Colchian  territory.  Here  they  remained 
for  a  month,  being  hospitably  entertained,  resting  from 
their  toils,  and  from  time  to  time  plundering  the  native 
villages  on  the  neighboring  hills.  Here  they  sacri- 
ficed to  Jupiter  the  Preserver,  Hercules  the  Conductor, 
and  other  gods,  in  fulfillment  of  vows  which  they  had 
made  in  different  crisis  of  their  march.  After  the 
sacrifices  they  celebrated  games,  of  which  Xenophon 
gives  a  comical  account.  A  steep  hill-side  was  chosen 
for  the  race-course,  down  wiiicli  horses  had  to  gallop, 
and,  turning  round  in  the  sea,  to  come  up  again  to  the 


TEE  RETREAl  OF  THE  GREEKS.  51 


altar  on  the  top.  *'In  the  descent  many  rolled  over; 
but  in  coming  back  against  the  stiff  ascent,  the  horses 
could  hardly  get  along  at  a  walk.  There  was  conse- 
quently great  shouting  and  laughter  and  cheeing  from 
the  people." 

With  these  words  of  light-hearted  good- humor, 
Xenophon  concludes  his  account  of  the  retreat  of  the 
ten  thousand  Greeks  from  Babylonia  to  Trebizond,  on 
the  Euxine.  The  retreat  itself  had  occupied  five 
months,  and  it  was  now  the  month  of  February,  in 
the  year  400  b.c.  Additional  difficulties  aud  troubles 
awaited  them  in  their  return  through  the  outlying 
Greek  colonies;  these  w^ere  partly  of  their  own  crea- 
tion, and  partly  owing  to  the  selfishness  of  their  coun- 
trymen. A  whole  year  elapsed  before  the  remnant  of 
the  Cyreian  force  was  incorporated  with  the  Lace- 
daemonian army  in  Asia  Minor,  and  before  Xenophon 
left  them.  These  subsequent  events,  and  with  them 
the  later  personal  career  of  Xenophon,  the  chief  leader 
and  the  historian  of  the  march,  will  form  the  subject 
of  our  next  chapter.  The  preceding  pages  have  re- 
flected a  brilliant  episode  of  Greek  military  history. 
It  is  true  that  the  Cyreian  force  encountered  no  ene- 
mies who  combined  bravery  of  spirit  with  the  arts 
of  war.  Their  opponents  were  effeminate  Orientals  or 
half-savage  mountaineers.  Yet  the  Greeks  had  always 
the  odds  of  either  overwhelming  numbers,  or  of  diffi- 
culties of  the  ground,  against  them.  Through  these 
their  untiring  energy  aud  courage,  and  the  prestige 
created  by  their  bold  front  and  their  elan,  alone  car- 
ried them.  They  were  favored,  of  course,  by  for- 
tune, and  also  by  the  errors  and  the  backwardness  of 
their  foes.  After  the  affair  of  Cunaxa,  it  would  seem 
easy  for  the  King  to  have  wasted  the  country  with  his 


52 


XENOPHOK 


cavalry,  to  have  kept  them  outside  the  Median  wall, 
and  to  have  starved  them  into  submission.  Again, 
after  Tissaphernes  had  murdered  their  officers,  it  is 
difficult  to  see  why  he  did  not  hold  the  passage  of  the 
Zab  agaiDst  them,  or  why  in  the  succeeding  days  he 
did  not  attack  them  in  force.  Doubtless  he  would 
have  done  so  if  their  march  through  the  plain  had 
continued  longer,  because  his  troops  were  gradually 
getting  accustomed  to  the  idea  of  encountering  Greeks. 
But  from  this  danger,  to  which  they  must  ultimately 
have  succumbed,  the  mountains  of  Kurdistan  oppor- 
tunely saved  them.  After  that  point  the  difficulties 
were  of  a  different  kind,  and  such  as  their  Greek  ver- 
satility and  buoyancy  of  spirit  were  able  to  cope  with. 

The  graphic  memoir  in  which  Xenophon  recorded 
the  fortunes  of  the  Ten  Thousand  divulged  a  secret  to 
the  world:  this  was  the  secret  of  the  essential  weak- 
ness of  the  Persian  empire.  Henceforth,  as  Mr.  Grote 
observes,*  all  the  military  and  political  leaders  of 
Greece — Agesilaus,  Jason  of  Pherse,  and  others,  down 
to  Philip  and  Alexander — were  firmly  persuaded  that, 
with  a  tolerably  numerous  force,  they  could  at  any 
moment  succeed  in  overthrowing  the  Persian  power. 
This  conviction  waited  for  time  and  opportunity  to 
give  it  effect.  For  two  generations  Persia  maintained 
an  influence  over  the  affairs  of  Greece  by  subsidizing 
one  state  against  another.  But  when  all  the  Greek 
states  had  fallen  under  the  rule  of  Macedonia,  then 
the  hour  struck.  Alexander  the  Great  went  forth  to 
conquer  Persia,  and  in  so  doing  he  changed  the  face 
of  the  world  and  the  course  of  history.  But  nothing 
is  more  clear  than  that  the  revelations  of  Xenophon 


*  History  of  Greece,  vol.  ix.  p.  248. 


TEE  FORTUNES  OF  THE  TEN  TllOUSANB.  53 


had  taken  hold  of  his  mind,  and  that  the  idea  of  the 
expedition  of  Alexander  sprang  originally  from  tha 
Anabasis"  of  Xenophon. 

CHAPTER  ly. 

THE  SUBSEQUENT  FORTUNES  OF  THE  TEN  THOUSAND, 
AND  NOTICES  OF  THE  LATEB  LIFE  OF  XENOPHON. 

**  What  the  Greeks  did  in  their  march  up  the  country 
with  Cyrus,  and  what  they  underwent  in  tneir  journey 
to  the  Euxine  Sea;  how  they  arrived  at  the  Greek  city 
of  Trebizond,  and  how  they  offered  the  sacrifices  which 
they  had  vowed  to  offer  for  their  safety  as  soon  as 
they  should  reach  a  friendly  country  has  "been  related 
in  the  preceding  part  of  this  narrative.**  Thus  begins 
the  fifth  book  of  the  Anabasis,"  and  Xenophon  now 
proceeds  to  record  the  proceedings  of  a  council  which 
was  held  at  Trebizond  to  consider  the  next  steps  to 
be  pursued.  Wearied  as  the  soldiers  were  by  Inces- 
sant marching  and  fighting,  they  desired  to  perform 
the  rest  of  the  journey  before  tnem  on  ships,  and  tluis 
to  arrive  home  as  Ulysses  was  described  by  Homer  to 
have  done — ''stretched  out  in  sleep."  It  was  agreed 
that  Cheirisophus  should  sail  away  to  Byzantium,  and 
persuade  Anaxibius,  the  Lacedaemonian  admiral  there 
to  send  ships  for  them* 

Cheirisophus  having  started,  foraging-partiea  of  the 
army  went  out  to  plunder  the  neighboring  villages. 
The  most  extensive  operation  was  that  undertaken  by 
about  half  the  army  under  Xenophon  against  the 
Drylge  or  Drillians,  a  warlike  tribe  among  the  moun- 
tains, of  whom  nothing  further  is  known.  With  some 
ilifiiculty  and  "not  inconsiderable"  loss,  they  took  the 


54 


XENOPHON. 


citadel  of  these  people,  and  plundered  their  chief  town. 
As  Cheirisophus  did  not  return,  and  provisions  were 
runnini^  short,  the  Greeks  commenced  their  march  by 
laud  along  the  coast,  sending  the  sick  and  all  who  were 
above  forty  years  of  age  by  sea,  in  a  few  vessels  which 
they  had  procured. 

In  three  days  they  arrived  at  Cerasus,  or  Kerasunt, 
a  place  wnich  has  given  its  name  to  that  now  popular 
fruit,  the  cherry,  which  was  first  introduced  into 
Europe  from  Cerasus  by  the  Roman  general  Lucullus, 
in  the  year  73  B.C.*  Here  the  soldiers  were  reviewed 
under  arms,  and  were  found  to  be  reduced  in  number 
by  the  casualties  of  the  retreat  to  8600  men.  A  divi- 
sion was  made  of  the  money  that  had  been  obtained  by 
the  sale  of  captives.  A  tenth  part  was  consecrated  to 
Apollo  and  to  Diana  of  Ephesus,  and  each  man  re- 
ceived his  share  of  the  remainder.  Starting  hence,  they 
fought  their  way  through  the  country  of  the  Mosynseci, 
whose  metropolis  they  plundered;  and  then  came  upon 
another  settlement  of  the  Chalybes,  engaged  in  the 
manufacture  of  iron,  and  apparently  peaceable  in  habits. 
Without  further  difficulty  they  reached  Cotyora,f  a 
Greek  colony  from  Sinope,  and  half-way  between  that 
place  and  TreVizond.  At  this  point  they  had  marched 
in  eight  months  1860  geographical  miles  from  the  plains 
of  Babylon.    The  Cyreians  were  not  admitted  into  the 

*  "The  cherry  is  said  to  have  been  introduced  into  Britain 
one  hundred  and  twenty  years  afterwards;  but  some  suppose 
that  the  cherries  introduced  by  the  Romans  into  Britain  were 
lost,  and  they  were  reintroduced  in  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.  by 
Richard  Haines,  the  fruiterer  of  that  monarch.  The  Romans 
extended  the  cultivation  of  the  cherry  to  eight  varieties.  In 
the  British  gardens  are  upwards  of  forty  sorts."— lilr.  Ains- 
worth's  "  Travels  in  the  Track  of  the  Ten  Thousand  Greeks." 

t  No  traces  of  this  town  can  be  found  at  the  present  day. 


TUE  FORTUNES  OF  THE  TEN  TIIO  USAND.  55 


town  of  Cotyora,  but  tliey  encamped  under  the  walls, 
and  remained  here  for  forty-five  days,  during  which  time 
the  thought  of  remaining  altogether  appears  to  have 
occurred  to  the  minds  of  some.  After  all  the  difficulties 
they  had  surmounted  there  still  lay  great  obstacles  be- 
tween them  and  their  Grecian  fatherland.  In  the  first 
place,  unless  they  could  procure  shipping  for  the  force, 
they  would  have  to  pass  through  the  hostile  country  of 
Paphlagonia,  intersected  by  four  broad  rivers — the 
Thermodon,  the  Iris,  the  Halys,  and  the  Parthenius. 
Negotiations  were  therefore  opened  with  the  people  of 
Sinope  to  supply  them  with  ships.  But,  in  the  mean- 
time, when  Xenophon  contemplated  the  brilliant  little 
army  still  left  with  him,  the  idea  arose  in  his  mind  that 
it  would  be  a  noble  thing  to  employ  this  force  in  some 
enterprise  of  conquest  and  colonization  on  the  Euxine 
itself.  He  seems  to  have  thought  of  attacking  and 
conquering  Phasis,  or  some  other  non-Hellenic  city,  and 
of  settling  down  in  the  conquered  territory  with  such  of 
the  soldiers  as  might  be  willing  to  remain.  Patriotically 
he  thought  of  the  prestige  and  advantage  w^hich  w^ould 
be  thus  gained  for  Greece;  and  personally,  he  doubtless 
thought  of  the  position  which  he  might  himself  hold 
as  founder  and  ruler  of  a  new  Hellenic  city,  which 
could  hardly  fail  to  become  rich,  powerful,  and  impor- 
tant. A  trifling  obstacle,  however,  thwarted  all  his 
plans.  Before  communicating  them  to  the  soldiers, 
Xenophon,  according  to  his  usual  custom,  and  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  advice  of  Socrates,  determined  to 
take  counsel  of  the  gods.  He  called  on  the  chief  sooth- 
sayer of  the  army,  by  name  Silanus,  to  offer  a  sacrifice, 
and  consult  the  omens  as  to  his  project  of  colonization. 
Now  it  so  happened  that  Silanus  was  in  a  different 
position  from  all  the  rest  of  the  army;  for  while  they 


56 


XENOFHON. 


were  all  returning  with  their  pockets  empty,  Silanus 
had  managed  to  bring  safely  through  the  march  a  sum 
of  3000  darics  (£2600),  which  Cyrus  had  given  him  as 
a  reward  for  a  successful  divination.*  Silanus  then 
was  of  all  things  most  anxious  to  get  home  at  once,  and 
to  prevent  anything  which  might  detain  the  army  and 
himself  with  it  in  Asia  Minor.  He  dare  not  tell  Xeno- 
phon  that  the  omens  were  unfavorable  to  the  main 
issue,  as  they  were  not  so,  and  Xenophon  knew  all 
about  the  rules  of  divination,  but  said  that  he  dis- 
cerned in  the  victims  some  collateral  indications  of  a 
conspiracy  against  Xenophon.  And  he  took  care  to 
prove  the  truth  of  these  alleged  indications,  by  prema- 
turely divulging  to  the  army  a  garbled  account  of  the 
plans  of  Xenophon,  and  thus  creating  a  ^prejudice 
against  them. 

The  promulgation  of  these  designs  had,  at  all  events, 
one  good  result.  For  the  merchants  from  Sinope  and 
Heraclea,  who  had  come  to  the  camp,  being  alarmed  by 
the  notion  of  a  powerful  military  force  seizing  territory 
and  disturbing  relations  in  their  neighborhood,  came 
forward  and  agreed  to  guarantee  transports  for  the  mer- 
cenaries to  the  Hellespont,  with  the  additional  promise 
of  a  liberal  scale  of  pay,  to  commence*  from  the  first 
new  moon  after  their  departure  from  Cotyora.  Tima- 
sion  and  Thorax,  two  officers  who  were  especially 
jealous  of  Xenophon,  urged  these  offers  upon  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  army,  while  others  loudly  accused  him 
of  underhand  maneuvring  to  cheat  the  soldiers  into 
remaining  against  their  will.  Xenophon  at  once  rose  to 
rebut  these  charges;  and  having  showed  the  impossibil- 
ity of  his  detaining  the  army  against  its  will,  and  the 


*  See  above,  p.  21. 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  THE  TEN  THOUSAND.  57 


absurdity  of  supposing  that  lie  could  aim  at  doing  so, 
he  concluded  by  saying,*  *'If  you  had  continued  as 
destitute  and  unprovided  as  you  were  just  now,  I  should 
still  have  looked  out  for  a  resource  in  the  capture  of 
some  city  which  would  have  enabled  such  of  you  as 
chose  to  return  at  once,  while  the  rest  might  stay  be- 
hind to  enrich  themselves.  But  now  there  is  no 
longer  any  necessity,  since  Heraclea  and  Sinope  are 
sending  transports,  and  Timasion  promises  pay  to  you 
from  the  next  new  moon.  Nothing  can  be  better;  you 
will  go  back  safely  to  Greece,  and  will  receive  pay  for 
going  thither.  I  desist  at  once  from  my  scheme,  and 
call  upon  all  who  were  favorable  to  desist  also.  Only 
let  us  all  keep  together  until  we  are  on  safe  ground, 
and  let  the  man  who  lags  behind  or  runs  off  be  con- 
demned as  a  wrong-doer."  This  question  being  put  to 
the  vote,  e'very  hand  was  held  up  in  its  favor.  The 
last  suggestion  was  a  shaft  aimed  at  the  soothsayer 
Silanus,  who  had  decidedly  intended  to  run  off  "  with 
his  treasure  at  the  earliest  opportunity.  This  indeed 
he  ultimately  effected;  but  for  the  present  the  soldiers 
put  down  his  protestations^  threatening  him  with  pun- 
ishment if  he  should  be  found  attempting  to  desert. 

Xenophon  fiad  satisfied  the  army  with  regard  to  his 
actions  and  intentions  in  the  present,  but  he  was 
shortly  afterwards  called  upon  to  clear  himself  of  cer- 
tain charges  with  regard  to  the  past.  It  was  resolved 
among  the  army,  during  their  long  halt  at  Cotyora, 
that  the  generals  should  be  called  upon  to  give  an  ac- 
count of  their  conduct  during  the  march,  and  Xenophon 
among  the  rest  came  in  for  his  share  of  unfavorable, 
and  not  very  grateful,  review.    We  have  seen  how. 


*  Abridged  by  Mr.  Grote,  History  of  Greece,  vol.  ix.  p.  184, 


58 


XENOPllON. 


along  the  bank  of  the  Tigris,  through  the  passes  of 
Kurdistan,  over  the  uplands  of  Armenia,  throughout 
tlie  whole  march,  he  was  the  life  and  soul  of  the  army. 
Always  fertile  in  device;  always  active,  ready,  and 
cheerful ;  equally  prompt  to  counsel  others  and  to  meet 
danger  himself — he  gradually  acquired  an  ascendancy 
far  beyond  that  of  the  other  commanders.  There  seems 
little  doubt  that  the  salvation  of  the  force  was  greatly 
due  to  Xenophon.  But  now  that  the  troops  were  com- 
paratively safe  on  the  shore  of  the  Euxine,  they  forgot, 
in  some  instances,  the  benefit  of  being  commanded, 
and  looked  back  on  the  command  as  a  grievance.  The 
following  passage  is  given  in  full,  not  only  as  an  ac- 
count of  what  now  occurred,  but  as  an  illustration  of 
Xenophon's  mode  of  procedure  in  the  army ;  and  also 
as  an  attempt  to  convey,  as  well  as  a  translation  can 
do  this,  some  idea  of  his  style  of  writing: 

Some  also  brought  accusations  against  Xenophon,  alleging  that 
they  had  been  beaten  by  him,  and  charging  him  with  having  be- 
haved insolently.  On  this,  Xenophon  stood  up  and  called  on  him 
who  had  spoken  first  to  say  where  he  had  been  beaten.  He  an- 
swered, ''Where  we  were  perishing  with  cold,  and  when  the 
snow  was  deepest."  Xenophon  rejoined,  "  Come,  come;  in  such 
severe  weather  as  you  mention,  when  provision!  had  failed,  and 
we  had  not  wine  so  much  as  to  smell  to, — when  many  were  ex- 
hausted with  fatigue,  and  the  enemy  were  close  behind, — if  at 
such  a  time  I  behaved  insolently,  I  acknowledge  that  I  must  be 
more  vicious  than  an  ass,  which,  they  say,  is  too  vicious  to  feel 
being  tired.  Tell  us,  however,  why  you  were  beaten.  Did  I  ask 
you  for  anything,  and  beat  you  when  you  would  not  give  it  me? 
Did  I  ask  anything  back  from  you?  Was  I  quarreling  about  a 
love  affair?  Did  I  maltreat  you  in  my  cups?"  As  the  man  said 
that  there  was  nothing  of  this  kind,  Xenophon  asked  him, 
Whether  he  was  one  of  the  heavy-armed  troops?  He  answered 
"  No."  Whether  he  was  a  targeteer?  He  said  he  was  "  not  that 
either,  but  a  free  man,  who  had  been  sent  to  drive  a  mule  by  his 
comrades."   On  this  Xenophon  recognized  him,  and  asked  him, 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  THE  TEJS  TUOUSANl).  r.O 


"  Whatl  are  you  the  man  who  was  conveying  the  sick  person?" 
"Ay,  by  Jupiter,  I  am,"  said  he,  "  for  you  compelled  me  to  do  it, 
and  you  scattered  about  the  baggage  of  my  comrades."  "  The 
scattering,"  rejoined  Xenophon,  "  was  something  in  this  way:  I 
distributed  it  to  others  to  carry,  and  ordered  them  to  bring  it  to 
me  again;  and  haring  got  it  back,  I  restored  it  all  safe  to  you  as 
soon  as  you  had  produced  the  man  that  I  gave  you  in  charge. 
But  hear,  all  of  you,"  he  continued,  "in  what  way  the  affair  hap- 
pened, for  it  is  worth  listening  to.  A  man  was  being  left  behind 
because  he  was  able  to  march  no  farther.  I  knew  nothing  of 
him,  except  that  he  was  one  of  us.  And  I  compelled  you,  sir,  to 
bring  him,  that  he  might  not  perish;  for,  if  I  mistake  not,  the 
enemy  was  pressing  upon  us."  This  the  complainant  acknowl- 
edged. "  Well,  then,"  said  Xenophon,  "  after  I  had  sent  you  on, 
did  not  I  catch  you,  as  I  came  up  with  the  rearguard,  digging  a 
trench  to  bury  the  man,  when  I  stopped  and  commended  you? 
But  while  we  were  standing  by,  the  man  drew  up  his  leg,  and 
those  who  were  there  cried  out  that  he  was  alive.  And  you  said, 
"  He  may  be  as  much  alive  as  he  likes,  for  I  shan't  carry  him." 
On  this  I  struck  you,  it  is  quite  true,  for  you  seemed  to  me  to 
have  been  aware  that  the  man  was  alive."  "Well,  then,"  ex- 
claimed the  other,  "  did  he  die  any  the  less  after  I  had  rendered 
him  up  to  you?"  "  Why,  we  shall  all  die,"  said  Xenophon;  "  but 
is  that  any  reason  that  we  should  be  buried  alive?"  Hereupon 
all  the  assembly  cried  out  that  Xenophon  had  not  beaten  the 
fellow  half  enough.  And  this  complaint  having  been  disposed 
of,  no  others  were  brought  against  Xenophon,  who  then  ad- 
dressed the  soldiers,  saying,  "I  acknowledge  to  have  struck 
many  men  for  breach  of  discipline— men  who  were  content  to 
owe  their  preservation  to  your  orderly  march  and  constant  fight- 
ing, while  they  themselves  left  the  ranks  and  ran  on  before,  so 
as  to  have  an  advantage  over  you  in  looting.  Had  we  all  acted 
as  they  did,  we  should  have  perished  to  a  man.  Sometimes,  too, 
I  struck  men  who  were  lagging  behind  with  cold  and  fatigue,  or 
were  stopping  the  way  so  as  to  hinder  others  from  getting  for- 
ward. I  struck  them  with  my  fist,  in  order  to  prevent  them 
from  being  struck  by  the  lance  of  the  enemy.  It  is  a  plain  case: 
if  I  punished  any  one  for  his  good,  I  claim  the  privilege  of 
parents  with  their  children,  masters  with  their  scholars,  and 
surgeons  with  their  patients.  In  the  time  of  storm  the  captain 
must  be  rough  with  his  men,  for  the  least  mistake  is  fatal.  But 
this  is  all  over  now:  the  calm  has  come.   And  since  I  strike  no- 


CO 


XENOPllOK 


body  now,  when  by  the  favor  of  the  gods  I  am  in  good  spirits, 
and  am  no  longer  depressed  with  cold,  hunger,  and  fatigue,  and 
now  that  I  have  more  wine  to  drink,  you  may  see  that  it  was  at 
all  events  not  through  insolence  that  I  struck  any  one  before. 
If  such  things  are  to  be  brought  up  against  me,  I  would  ask  in 
common  fairness  that  some  of  you  stand  up  on  the  other  side  and 
recall  a  few  of  the  occasions  on  which  I  have  helped  you  against 
the  cold,  or  against  the  enemy,  or  when  sick,  or  in  distress." 

These  words  produced  the  desired  effect.  Many  in- 
dividuals responded  to  tlie  appeal,  **so  that,"  as  Xeno- 
phon  briefly  tells  us,  "  it  was  all  right  in  the  end," — 
that  is  to  say,  that  he  was  not  merely  acquitted,  but 
stood  higher  than  before  in  the  estimation  of  the  army. 

The  remaining  history  of  the  return  of  the  ten 
thousand  Greeks  is  a  record  of  the  successive  triumphs 
of  Xenophon's  good  sense,  governing  capacity^  and 
persuasive  oratory.  And  a  very  difficult  task  he 
appears  to  have  had  in  keeping  the  army  straight,  now 
that  it  had  got  into  the  region  of  Greek  colonies. 
When  the  pressure  of  the  Persian  cavalry  and  of 
hostile  mountain  tribes  was  removed,  the  Cyreian  army 
constantly  tended  to  lose  its  unity,  and  resolve  itself 
into  sections  and  individual  atoms.  Xenophon  alone, 
as  Mr.  Grote  points  out,  possessed  a  power,  not  shared 
by  the  other  generals,  of  working  on  the  minds  of  the 
soldiers  collectively,  and  of  keeping  up  an  esprit  de 
corps  among  them.  He  owed  this  to  his  Athenian 
education.  He  always  treated  every  assemblage  of 
the  soldiers  as  an  agora,  or  formal  meeting  for  debate. 
He  thus  brought  into  play  the  art  which  he  alone  in  the 
army  appears  to  have  possessed — theart  of  dealing  with 
and  influencing  assembled  multitudes.  His  speeches, 
considered  in  relation  to  their  object  and  occasion,  are 
models  of  oratory.  Apparently  straightforward  and 
simple,  and  totally  free  from  all  flourishes  of  rhetoric, 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  THE  TEN  THOUSAND.  61 


they  yet  are  most  artistically  constructed,  so  as  to  say 
the  most  effective  things  in  the  most  effective  way.  The 
report  of  them  is  so  graphically  given  that  we  seem  to 
have  the  whole  scene  before  our  eyes,  and  to  be  made  in- 
terested spectators  of  transactions  that  took  place  twenty- 
two  hundred  years  before  any  of  us  were  born.  And  it 
must  be  added  that,  in  these  transactions  we  find  Xeno- 
phon  always  using  his  powers  of  inflluence  for  good  and 
worthy  purposes — for  the  advantage  of  the  army  as  a 
whole,  rather  than  for  any  isolated  object  of  self-aggran- 
dizement; and  for  the  prevention  equally  of  base  con- 
duct and  of  rash  and  calamitous  enterprise. 

The  Cyreian  Greeks,  embarking  in  the  ships  which 
had  been  provided  for  them,  sailed  along  the  Black  Sea 
to  Sinope — a  name  rendered  familiar  to  the  present  gen- 
eration by  the  disastrous  episode  of  the  Russian  war* 
which  occurred  there  in  1853.  At  this  flourishing  Greek 
seaport,  the  seat  of  an  ancient  Milesian  colony^  they 
were  hospitably  received,  and  here  the  soldiers  began  to 
feel  the  absolute  necessity  of  striking  some  blow  which 
might  fill  their  purses  and  save  them  from  returning 
empty-handed  to  Greece.  For  the  success  of  such  a 
project  they  determined  that  they  must  have  a  single 
commander-in-chief  to  lead  them.  Their  thoughts  at 
once  turned  towards  Xenophon,  and  they  unanimously 
deputed  their  captains  to  request  him  to  accept  the  com- 
mand. Xenophon  was  in  some  degree  tempted  by  so 
flattering  a  proposal ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  he  reflected 
on  the  diflSculties  and  precariousness  of  the  position 
offered  to  him;  and  being  in  doubt,  he  resolved,  as 
usual,  to  lay  the  matter  before  the  gods.  "Jupiter  the 
King,"  to  whom  he  sacrificed,  showed  nothing  but 
warning  and  dissuasive  omens.    So  when  the  army  was 


*  See  Mr.  Kinglake's  "  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,"  vol.  i.  p.  373. 


63 


XENOPIIOK 


assembled,  and  Xenoplion  had  been  formally  proposed 
for  election  as  commander,  he  rose  and  deprecated  such 
a  step  on  the  ground  that  it  would  be  a  slight  to  Sparta, 
as  the  leading  state  of  Greece,  if  an  Athenian  should  be 
chosen  commander,  when  a  Lacedaemonian  general  was 
present.  Several  speakers  opposed  this  excuse  as  invalid. 
But  when  Xenophon  plainly  told  them  that  the  omens 
had  been  unfavorable  to  his  accepting  the  chief  com- 
mand, they  acquiesced,  and  chose  for  their  chief  Cheiri- 
sophus,  the  Lacedaemonian  who  had  commanded  the 
vanguard  in  the  retreat  from  Persia. 

The  army  now  pursued  its  voyage  over  waters  which 
Avere  said  to  have  of  old  borne  the  Argo,  the  symbolic 
precursor  of  Greek  nautical  enterprise.  They  soon 
arrived  at  Heraclea,  which  had  been  colonized  from 
Megara,  a  city  not  far  from  Athens.  Here  the}'^  were 
hoispitably  received  by  the  inhabitants,  who  sent  them 
out  presents  of  oxen,  barley-meal,  wine,  and  other  things. 
The  soldiers,  however,  being  still  in  a  discontented  and 
greedy  frame  of  mind,  began  to  debate  whether  they 
should  continue  their  journey  homewards  by  sea  or  by 
land;  and  some  proposed  and  actually  carried  the  reso- 
lution that  they  should  levy  a  tax  of  £2300  or  more 
upon  the  city  which  had  received  them  so  kindly.  Both 
Cheirisophus  and  Xenophon  absolutely  refused  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  making  such  an  unjust  demand 
upon  a  friendly  Greek  city.  The  soldiers  thereupon 
sent  three  persons  of  their  own  nomination  to  convey 
their  resolutions  to  the  people  of  Heraclea.  The  demands 
and  the  threats  of  these  envoys  merely  had  the  effect  of 
causing  the  Heracleans  to  close  their  gates  and  put  them- 
selves in  a  state  of  defense.  The  army,  thus  baffled, 
broke  out  into  fresh  dissensions  and  insubordination. 
The  Arcadians  and  Achaeans,  who  made  up  above  half 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  TEE  TEN  THOUSAND.  63 


the  force,  separated  themselves  from  the  rest  and  chose 
their  own  generals.  And  thus  the  chief  command  of 
Clieirisophus  came  to  an  end  on  the  sixth  or  seventh 
day  after  he  had  been  chosen.  Some  two  thousand  of 
the  troops  attached  themselves  to  Xenoplion,  and  tlie 
army  was  broken  up  into  three  divisions.  Moving  still 
to  the  west,  these  three  divisions  separately  (one  in  ships 
and  two  by  land)  reached  Calpe,  a  harbor  in  Bithynia, 
not  far  from  the  Bosphorus.  Here  each  of  the  two  other 
divisions  got  into  trouble  in  marauding  expeditions, 
and  were  severally  rescued  by  the  division  under  Xeno- 
phon.  Here  also  Cheirisophus  died  of  fever,  and  Xeno- 
phon  became  virtually,  though  not  nominally,  the  com- 
mander-in-chief. And  the  soldiers  passed  a  resolution 
that  no  one,  under  pain  of  death,  should  again  propose 
to  divide  the  army. 

Xenophon  evidently  set  eyes  of  affection  upon  the 
harbor  of  Calpe.  He  describes  with  enthusiasm  its 
convenient  situation  under  a  lofty  rock,  its  copious 
supply  of  water,  the  abundant  timber  in  its  neiglibor- 
hood,  and  the  fertility  of  the  surrounding  country — 
producing^,  as  he  twice  observes,  ''everything  except 
olives,"  which,  as  a  Greek,  he  seems  particularly  to  have 
missed.  The  belief  that  he  wanted  to  colonize  the  place 
was  very  strong  in  the  army,  and  the  soldiers,  as  a  pro- 
test, refused  to  encamp  upon  the  very  spot  which  Xeno- 
phon says  would  have  been  the  natural  site  for  a  city." 
To  explain  this  conduct  of  theirs,  he  mentions  that  the 
majority  of  Greeks  in  the  army  were  not  absolutely  poor 
men,  but  (what  we  should  call)  gentlemen,  who  had 
joined  the  expedition  from  a  regard  to  Cyrus,  or  under 
the  idea  that  brilliant  fortunes  might  be  made  in  his 
service.  Many  of  them  had  families  at  home,  and  they 
now  wanted  to  get  back. 


64 


XENOPHOK 


The  natives  of  the  surroundiug  country  had  the  same 
impression,  that  a  new  city  was  to  be  formed,  and  after 
Xeuophon  had  given  tliem  a  little  taste  of  Greek  prowess, 
ill  a  sharp  skirmish  with  some  Bithynian  troops,  assisted 
by  some  cavalry  belonging  to  the  Persian  satrap,  they 
sent  in  proposals  of  alliance.  Traders  along  the  coast, 
also,  willingly  put  in  to  secure  the  custom  of  the  sup- 
posed settlers.  And  the  omens  for  departure,  whenever 
a  sacrifice  was  made,  were,  or  seemed  to  Xenophon, 
extremely  unfavorable.  The  army  thus  rested  many 
days  at  Calpe,  whence  they  did  a  good  deal  of  plunder- 
ing. 

And  now  a  new  character  appeared  on  the  scene. 
This  was  Oleander,  the  Lacedsemonian  governor  of  By- 
zantium (now  Constantinople),  to  whom  communica- 
tions had  been  sent,  and  who  now  came  with  two  ships. 
The  circumstances  of  his  arrival  were  unfortunate,  for 
the  army  was  out  on  raid,  and  when  they  came  back 
some  of  the  men  got  embroiled  with  one  of  Oleander's 
followers.  This  man  was  really  acting  unjustly,  by  en- 
deavoring to  prevent  part  of  the  plunder  from  being 
conducted  to  the  public  store.  In  the  dispute  he  was 
roughly  treated  by  Agasias,  a  friend  of  Xenophon's, 
and  was  pelted  with  stones  by  some  soldiers.  This  gave 
rise  to  what  we  should  call  ''a  grave  complication;"  for 
the  powerful  Oleander  himself  was  frightened  by  the 
excited  soldiery,  and  he  threatened,  when  Xenophon 
had  restored  order,  to  sail  away  and  to  proclaim  the 
Cyreian  army  enemies  to  Sparta,  and  interdicted  from 
reception  in  any  Grecian  city.  The  effective  eloquence 
and  perfect  tact  of  Xenophon  were  now  in  requisition ; 
and  by  the  use  of  these,  on  the  one  hand,  he  persuaded 
the  soldiers  to  make  absolute  submission;  and,  on  the 
/  Ind,  he  mollified  Oleander,  and  induced  him, 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  THE  TEN  THOUSAND.  65 


not  only  to  pass  over  what  had  occurred,  but  to  accept 
the  command  of  the  army,  for  the  purpose  of  conduct- 
ing them  back  to  Greece.  Unfortunately,  however,  the 
omens  were  for  three  days  unfavorable,  and  Oleander, 
though  expressing  the  greatest  friendship  for  the  Cyre- 
ian  force,  declared  that  evidently  the  gods  would  not 
allow  him  to  do  more  for  them  than  to  prepare  for  them 
a  good  reception  at  Byzantium  when  they  should  arrive 
there;  and  he  accordingly  sailed  away.  The  army 
shortly  afterwards  started  by  land,  and  after  six  days* 
march,  having  done  a  good  stroke  of  looting  on  the  way, 
they  arrived  at  Chrysopolis,  which  answers  to  the  mo- 
dern Scutari,  the  Asiatic  suburb  of  Constantinople, 
well  known  as  the  seat  of  our  hospitals  during  the  Cri- 
mean war. 

The  Cyreian  soldiers  were  now  on  the  threshold  of 
their  fatherland,  but  actual  return  seemed  still  as  hard 
for  them  as  it  had  been  for  the  much-wandering  Ulysses. 
The  concluding  pages  of  Xenophon's  narrative  repre- 
sent them  as  bandied  about  by  Persian  satraps,  Lace- 
dgemonian  officials,  and  Thracian  chiefs,  all  equally  un- 
scrupulous in  conduct.  The  interest  of  such  details 
consists  in  the  picture  of  the  times  which  they  give  us. 
We  see  the  total  want  of  '*  solidarity"  among  the  Greek 
states.  Sparta,  inde^if  appears  as  all-powerful,  but 
quite  devoid  of  kindred  feeling  towards  Greeks  as 
Greeks.  No  welcome  as  to  countrymen  is  extended  to 
the  Greek  force  who,  with  such  unparalled  bravery  and 
skill,  had  just  cut  their  way  out  of  the  depths  of  the  Per- 
sian empire.  They  are  regarded  with  cold  selfishness  or 
suspicion  as  tools  to  be  used,  or  an  infliction  to  be 
dreaded.  We  see,  then,  that  principle  of  self-seeking 
isolation  at  work  in  Greece  which  made  her  the  prey  of 
Macedonia,  and  afterwards  of  Rome.    And  those  ac- 


66 


XENOPIIOK 


quainted  with  India  will  be  aware  that  it  is  the  same 
principle  which  has  split  up  a  vast  homogeneous  popu- 
lation, and  has  given  over  to  the  rule  of  England  an 
empire  extending  from  the  Himalayas  to  Cape  Comorin. 

While  the  Greeks  were  at  Chrysopolis,  Oleander 
ceased  to  be  the  first  man  in  Byzantium;  for  Anaxibius, 
the  High  Admiral  of  Sparta,  happened  to  come  there, 
and  was,  or  course,  superior  to  the  local  governor.  The 
first  intrigue  against  the  Greek  army  was  managed  by 
Pharnabazus,  the  Persian  satrap  in  their  neighborhood, 
who  made  interest  with  Anaxibius  to  remove  them  out 
of  his  country.  Anaxibius,  willing  to  gratify  an  Ori- 
ental magnate,  made  no  scruple  in  inviting  the  Greeks 
over  to  Byzantium,  under  promise  of  pay  for  the  troops. 
When  he  had  got  them  there  he  gave  them  no  pay,  but 
simply  ordered  them  to  pack  up  and  march  home  by  the 
Chersonese.  The  soldiers  were  naturally  excited  at  this 
treatment,  and  they  were  within  an  ace  of  sacking  the 
town  of  Byzantium.  Xenophon  required  all  his  oratory 
to  dissuade  them  from  such  a  step,  which  would  have 
infallibly  reduced  them  all  to  the  position  of  hopeless 
outlaws.  The  attention  of  the  army  was  now  diverted 
by  the  offers  of  a  Tiieban  adventurer,  who  proposed  to 
engage  them  for  a  filibustering  expedition.  As,  how- 
ever, it  turned  out  that  he  was  ul^le  to  provision  them, 
tlie  negotiations  broke  down,  and  the  army  took  up  its 
quarters  in  some  Thracian  villages,  not  far  from  Byzan- 
tium. A  good  many  of  the  soldiers  disbanded;  some 
sold  their  arms  to  pay  their  passage  home;  others  joined 
the  people  in  the  neighboring  towns. 

Xenophon  in  the  meanwhile  had  taken  leave  of  the 
army,  having  induced  Anaxibius  to  give  him  a  passage 
home.  They  sailed  together,  but  before  they  had  got  out 
of  the  Sea  of  Marmora  they  were  met  by  one  Aristarchus, 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  THE  TEN  THOUSAND.  67 


who  was  on  his  way  to  replace  Oleander  as  governor  of 
Byzantium,  and  who  brought  news  that  Anaxibius  him- 
self had  been  superseded.  Anaxibius,  wishing  to  do  a 
last  good  turn  to  Pharnabazus,  advised  Aristarclius, 
when  he  had  got  to  his  government,  to  seize  and  sell  for 
slaves  as  many  of  the  Cyreian  soldiers  as  he  could  lay 
hands  on.  Aristarchus;  acting  on  this  hint,  appears 
actually  to  have  sold  four  hundred  of  them  whom  he 
found  in  Byzantium — one  of  the  most  atrocious  little 
acts  in  all  history.  And  Anaxibius,  being  naturally 
anxious  to  get  some  reward  for  his  zeal  from  Pliaruaza- 
bus,  sent  to  him;  but  the  satrap,  who  had  in  the  mean- 
time learned  that  Anaxibius  was  no  longer  in  power, 
promptly  gave  him  the  cold  shoulder,  and  would  have 
no  communications  with  him. 

The  disappomted  selfishness  of  Anaxibius  now  took  a 
new  direction,  and  he  became  as  anxious  to  plant  a  thorn 
in  the  side  of  the  Persian  magnate  as  he  had  hitherto 
been  to  serve  him.  He  called  Xenophon,  and  ''ordered  " 
him  by  all  means  to  sail  back  to  the  army,  to  keep  it 
together  and  collect  the  scattered  men,  and  bring  over 
the  force  without  delay  into  Asia.  Xenophon  does  not 
tell  us  what  were  his  own  reflections  upon  this  com- 
mission. Perhaps  he  could  not  have  got  home  against 
the  wishes  of  Anaxibius.  Perhaps  the  feeling  of  old 
companionship  with  the  army  was  strong  upon  him. 
He  speaks  as  if  he  at  once  accepted  the  task  imposed 
upon  him.  In  a  ship,  furnished  by  the  ex-admiral,  he 
crossed  again  to  Thrace,  and  arrived  among  the  army, 
by  whom  he  was  gladly  welcomed.  He  got  the  men 
down  to  Perinthus,  a  port  on  the  Sea  of  Marmora,  and 
began  to  collect  ships  for  their  conveyance.  But  Aris- 
tarclius, the  new  governor  of  Byzantium,  acting,  as 
Anaxibius  had  before  done,  in  the  interest  of  Pharnaza- 


68 


XENOPUON, 


bus,  now  interposed,  and  threatened  to  drown  any 
man  who  should  be  found  on  the  sea."  And  while  the 
harassed  Greeks  were  thus  again  arrested  in  then*  move- 
ments, there  came  to  them  fresh  overtures  from  Seuthes, 
a  neighboring  chief  of  Thrace,  who  had  before  made 
several  attempts  to  get  the  Cyreian  contingeat  into  his 
pay. 

The  omens  of  sacrifice  appeared  to  Xenoplion  to  favor 
the  entertaining  of  these  overtures.  He  therefore  went 
to  Seuthes,  whom  he  found  living  in  a  guarded  castle, 
and  who  told  him  that  he  required  the  troops  for  the  re- 
covery of  his  hereditary  rights  as  prince  of  the  Ordysi- 
ans,  of  which  rights  he  had  been  forcibly  deprived,  and 
driven  to  Jead  the  life  of  a  marauding  chief.  He  offered 
pay  of  one  stater  (about  £1  2s.  6d.)  per  month  for  each 
soldier,  with  double  for  the  captains,  and  four  times  as 
much  for  each  general.  He  promised,  in  addition,  lauds, 
yokes  of  oxen,  and  a  walled  town  to  reside  in.  To 
Xenophon  he  offered  his  daughter  aod  a  town  to  him- 
self. He  further  undertook  never  to  lead  the  Greeks 
more  than  seven  days'  march  from  the  sea. 

Upon  the  faith  of  these  promises  the  Greeks  entered 
the  service  of  Seuthes,  and  were  entertained  by  him 
with  a  barbaric  feast,  at  which  some  ludicrous  incidents 
occurred;  and  after  which  a  Thracian  entered  bring- 
ing a  white  horse,  and,  taking  a  horn  fall  of  wine, 
said,  *'I  drink  to  you,  O  Seuthes!  and  present  you 
with  this  horse,  on  which  you  will  pursue  your 
enemies."  Another,  in  similar  fashion,  offered  a  young 
slave;  another  some  vestments,  and  so  on.  When 
Xenophon  saw  that  some  complimentary  offering  was 
expected  from  himself,  and  as  the  wine-horn  was 
presented  to  him  for  this  very  purpose,  he  stood  up 
boldly,  and,  taking  the  horn,  said,     I  present  to  you,  O 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  THE  TEN  THOUSAND.  69 


Seutlies,  myself  and  my  comrades,  to  be  your  faithful 
friends,  and  to  recover  your  dominions  for  you."  The 
pledge  and  offering  were  well  received,  and  the  feast 
ended  merrily.  After  all  had  well  drunk,  and  the 
Greeks  were  thinking  of  retiring  to  their  lines  for 
the  night,  Seutlies  proposed  that  they  should  at  once 
strike  a  blow.  So,  though  it  was  the  depth  of  winter, 
they  started  at  midnight,  and,  having  crossed  a  moun- 
tain covered  with  snow,  they  came  down  next  day  on 
villages  which  they  plundered  and  burnt.  The  booty 
was  sent  away  to  be  sold  at  Perinthus,  to  provide  pay 
for  the  troops.  Afterwards  they  marched  into  the 
country  called  the  Delta  of  Thrace,  above  Byzantium. 
The  Greeks  had  a  good  deal  of  fighting,  and  suffered 
severely  from  the  frost, 'not  being  so  warmly  clad  as 
the  natives  of  the  country.  When  the  first  month 
was  up,  presents  were  offered  to  the  generals  (Xeno- 
phon,  however,  declined  to  take  anything);  and  twenty 
days',  instead  of  a  month's,  pay,  was  given  to  the 
troops.  This  naturally  caused  discontent  and  gave 
rise  to  a  quarrel  between  Xenophon  and  Heraclides, 
the  paymaster  of  Seuthes,  who  tried  as  much  as 
possible  to  damage  Xenophon  with  his  master.  He 
even  endeavored  to  get  the  other  Greek  generals  to 
say  that  they  could  lead  the  army  just  as  well  as  Xeno- 
phon. But  it  is  a  remarkable  proof  of  the  confidence 
which  Xenophon's  conduct  had  gradually  inspired,  that 
Timasion  and  other  generals  who  had  before  been 
jealous  of  him,  now  said  that  nothing  would  induce 
them  to  serve  without  him. 

This  testimony  of  his  brother  officers  must  have  been 
particularly  gratifying  to  Xenophon,  for  the  men  who 
were  less  discerning,  and  whose  minds  were  warped 
by  anger  at  their  pay  being  continually  withheld, 


70 


XENOPIION. 


yielded  to  all  sorts  of  suspicions  against  Xehophon, 
who,  they  thought,  must  have  been  privately  enriched 
by  Seuthes.  His  position  in  the  army  was,  therefore, 
for  the  time,  particularly  uncomfortable,  and  he  seems 
to  have  felt  it  very  much.  The  service  of  the  Greeks 
with  Seuthes  continued  for  two  months,  during  which 
time  they  took  and  plundered  villages  far  and  wide, 
even  as  far  up  as  Salmydessus,  a  seaport  on  the  Euxine; 
and,  in  short,  they  brought  the  whole  country  into  sub- 
jection to  Seuthes.  By  the  addition  of  men  from  the 
conquered  tribes  to  his  army,  he  had  by  this  time  a  force 
twice  as  numerous  as  the  Greeks,  whom  he  now  only 
wished  to  get  rid  of  without  the  necessity  of  paying 
them. 

A  change  in  Greek  politics,  at  this  juncture,  afforded 
the  Cyreians  an  escape  from  their  difficulties.  The 
Lacedaemonians  had  just  declared  war  against  the  Per- 
sian satraps,  Tissaphernes  and  Pharnabazus,  and  had 
sent  their  general,  Thimbron,  into  Asia  to  commence 
military  operations.  They  then  became  extremely 
anxious  to  avail  themselves  of  the  remnant  of  the  ten 
thousand  Greeks,  and,  instead  of  forbidding,  to  urge 
them  to  cross  over  to  Asia.  Two  Spartan  envoys, 
Charminus  and  Polynicus,  arrived  at  the  Greek  camp 
with  a  commission  from  Thimbron  to  offer  the  army 
the  same  pay  as  had  been  promised,  though  not  paid,  by 
Seuthes.  These  commissioners  were  hospitably  received 
by  Seuthes,  who  saw  in  them  a  means  of  ridding  Mm- 
of  the  army  which  he  had  made  his  catspaw,  and 
wanted  no  longer.  In  private  audience,  the  envoys 
asked  his  opinion  of  Xenophon,  and  Seuthes  replied, 
**He  is  not  a  bad  fellow  on  the  whole,  but  he  is  a 
soldiefs  friend,  and  that  hurts  his  interests. "  Xenophon 
appears  to  have  had  great  satisfaction  in  recording 


'I EE  FORTUNES  OF  THE  TEN  THOUSAND.  71 


"iliis  little  certificate  to  the  disinterestedness  of  his  con- 
duct. 

The  soldiers  on  hearing  the  offers  of  Thimbron  joy- 
.^uUy  closed  with  them,  but  still  complained  bitterly  of 
the  way  in  which  they  had  been  cheated  by  Seuthes. 
Charminus,  acknowledging  the  justice  of  their  com- 
ulaiut,  himself  made  a  representation  on  the  subject  to 
the  Thracian  chief,  but  without  effect.  As  a  last  appeal, 
he  even  sent  Xenophon  to  demand  the  arrears  of  pay  in 
the  name  of  the  Lacedaemonians.  This  ' '  afforded  the 
Athenian  an  opportunity  of  administering  a  severe 
lecture  to  Seuthes.  But  the  latter  was  found  less 
accessible  than  the  Cyreian  assembled  soldiers  to  the 
workings  of  eloquence:  nor  did  Xenophon  obtain  any- 
thing beyond  a  miserable  dividend  upon  the  sum  due — 
together  with  civil  expressions  towards  himself  person- 
ally; an  invitation  to  remain  with  a  thousand  men, 
instead  of  going  to  Asia  with  the  army;  and  renewed 
promises,  not  likely  now  to  find  much  credit,  of  a  fort 
and  a  grant  of  lands."* 

But  the  troubles  of  Xenophon  were  now  over,  and  a 
fun  of  good  luck  for  himself  closes  his  account  of  the 
Expedition  of  Cyrus.  He  would  have  gone  straight  to 
Athens,  but  the  soldiers,  who  were  now  on  the  best 
terms  with  him,  begged  him  not  to  leave  them  till  they 
should  be  handed  over  to  Thimbron.  They  all  crossed 
the  sea  of  Marmora  to  Lampsacus,  celebrated  for  its 
wine.  Here  Xenophon  met  an  old  acquaintance,  one 
Euclides,  a  soothsayer,  who  asked  him  how  much  gold 
he  had.  Xenophon  replied,  that  so  far  from  having 
anything,  he  was  just  going  to  sell  his  horse  to  pay  his 
traveling  expenses.    The  soothsayer,  on  inspection  of 


*  Mr.  Grote's  History  of  Greece,  vol.  ix.  p.  234,  235. 


72 


XENOPHOK 


the  victims,  said  that  evidently  Xenoplion  had  spoken 
the  truth,  but  "had  he  sufficiently  propitiated  Jupiter 
the  Gracious?"  Xenophon  admitted  that  he  had  not 
sacrificed  to  this  deity,  whom  he  seemed  to  think  it 
natural  to  regard  as  quite  distinct  from  Jupiter  the 
King,  to  whom  he  had  made  frequent  offerings.  He  at 
once  repaired  the  deficiency,  and  the  very  same  day  the 
Lacedaemonian  paymasters,  hearing  that  he  had  sold  a 
favorite  horse,  repurchased  it  for  him  at  the  price  of 
about  £55. 

Marching  through  the  Troas,  they  arrived  at  Perga- 
mus,  famous  for  its  library  of  200,000  volumes,  after- 
wards transferred  to  Alexandria;  for  the  invention  of 
parchment  (the  name  of  which  is  derived  from  Perga- 
mena);  for  its  painting  and  architecture;  and  for  being 
the  seat  of  one  of  the  Seven  Churches  of  Asia.  Here 
Xenophon  was  hospitably  entertained  by  a  Greek  lady, 
who  told  him  of  a  prize  awaiting  him  in  the  person  of 
one  Asidates,  a  wealthy  Persian,  w^ho  resided  in  the 
neighborhood.  Finding  the  omens  favorable,  Xeno- 
phon set  out  after  supper,  taking  only  a  select  party  of 
his  friends,  in  order  not  to -have  to  divide  the  booty 
among  too  many.  But  the  country-house  of  the  Persian 
was  strongly  fortified,  and  resisted  the  night  attack. 
And  at  daybreak  various  troops  in  the  pay  of  the  Great 
King  came  to  the  rescue,  and  it  was  as  much  as  the 
Greeks  could  do  to  fight  their  way  back  to  their  lines, 
with  some  slaves  and  cattle  enclosed  in  a  hollow  square. 
The  next  day  the  unfortunate  Asidates  attempted  to 
move  off  with  his  family  and  his  goods,  but  Xenophon 
came  down  upon  him  with  the  whole  Cyreian  force, 
and  carried  him  off  with  all  that  he  possessed.  Xeno- 
phon now  exultingly  says  that  *'he  had  no  complaint 
against  Jupiter  the  Gracious."   For  the  army  placed  at 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  THE  TEN  THOUSAND.  73 


his  disposal  the  pick  of  the  spoil,  so  that  he  was  **  now 
even  in  a  position  to  serve  a  friend." 

This  is  the  last  incident  recorded  in  the  Anabasis." 
To  some  it  has  appeared  as  a  blot  upon  the  character 
of  Xenophon,  but  it  might  be  remembered  first,  that 
the  Greeks  were  actually  at  war  with  the  Persians  at 
this  time;  secondly,  that  the  international  morality  of 
the  day  gave  a  general  sanction  to  acts  of  the  kind 
when    barbarians"  and  not  Greeks  were  the  victims. 

Under  the  above  circumstances  the  parting  of 
Xenophon  from  the  army  whose  perils  and  vicissi- 
tudes of  fortune  he  had  shared  for  exactly  two  years 
(from  March  401  B.C.  to  March  399  B.C.)  must  have 
been  on  both  sides  cordial  and  pleasant.  The  ten 
thousand  Greeks  had  been  reduced  by  casualties  and 
dispersion  to  six  thousand  ;  and  of  this  force  Thim- 
bron,  coming  to  Pergamus,  took  the  command.  The 
Cyreian  contingent  now  lost  its  distinctive  existence. 
It  was  merged  in  the  army  which,  under  Thimbron, 
and  afterwards  under  the  far  abler  Dercylidas,  who 
superseded  him,  carried  on  a  successful  campaign 
against  the  Persian  satraps,  and  secured  for  a  time 
the  independence  of  the  Greek  cities  in  Asia  Minor. 
Doubtless  many  of  the  old  comrades  of  Xenophon 
returned,  like  himself,  enriched  to  their  homes.  And 
doubtless  many  a  Greek  fireside  during  many  a  winter 
time  was  enlivened  by  tales  of  the  Expedition  of  Cyrus 
and  the  Retreat  of  the  Ten  Thousand  Greeks. 

Xenophon's  return  to  Athens  must  have  taken  plac^ 
within  a  few  weeks  of  the  death  of  his  master,  Socrates, 
lie  appears  to  have  diligently  collected  particulars  of 
tho  accusation,  trial,  and  death  of  the  sage,  and  to 
ha^'c  added  them  to  his  former  notes  of  the  conversa- 
tions of  Socrates.    But  it  appears  probable  that  he  did 


74 


XENOPHON. 


not  bring  out  his  Eecollections  '*  till  a  later  period  of 
his  own  life,  when  he  had  settled  down  to  literary 
pursuits.  Within  three  years  he  had  again  quitted 
his  home,  and  was  serving  under  the  Lacedaemonian 
king  Agesilaus  in  the  still  protracted  war  against  the 
Persians  in  Asia  Minor.  But  now.  a  fresh  shuffle  of 
the  political  cards  in  Greece  took  place, '  for  the 
Athenians  together  with  the  Thebans  and  others, 
formed  an  alliance  with  the  King  of  Persia  ;  and  thus 
Xenophon,  by  continuing  to  hold  command  under 
Agesilaus,  was  in  the  position  of  bearing  arms  agaidst 
his  country.  He  accompanied  Agesilaus  in  his  inva- 
sion of  northern  Greece,  and  was  present  with  him 
at  the  bloody  battle  of  Coroneia  (b.c.  394),  where  the 
Athenians  and  their  Theban  allies  were  vanquished. 
.For  this  he  was  treated  as  the  enemy  of  his  country, 
and  a  decree  of  banishment  was  passed  against  him. 

The  Lacedaemonians,  however,  did  not  fail  to  pro- 
vide him  with  a  home.  They  allotted  him  a  residence 
at  Scillus,*  a  village  about  two  miles  from  Olympia, 
where  the  great  games  were  held  every  fifth  year. 
This  circumstance  alone  must  have  made  the  situation 
agreeable  to  a  man  like  Xenophon.  It  was  as  if  a 
yeoman  of  sporting  tendencies  were  to  receive  a  pres- 
ent of  a  farm  at  Epsom.  And  the  Olympic  games 
were  something  more  than  equal  to  the  Derby; "  for 
they  implied  a  periodical  meeting  (under  terms  of  truce 
if  it  was  war-time)  of  all  the  great  wits  and  intellects, 
and  all  the  leading  characters,  both  literary  and  poli- 
tical, from  the  different  states  of  Greece.  There  was 
excellent  hunting  in  the  neighborhood  of  Scillus; — 


*  The  description  of  his  residence  at  Scillus  is  given  by 
Xenophon  himself  C  Anabasis,"  v.  3). 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  THE  TEN  THOUSAND.  75 


not  fox-hunting  on  horseback,  but  hunting  of  the 
boar  and  the  antelope  on  foot  witli  spears,  and  of  the 
hare  with  dogs  and  nets.  In  this  congenial  spot 
Xenophon  settled  down,  probably  in  the  forty-second 
year  of  his  age,  after  his  few  years'  campaigning,  to  a 
life  of  literature  and  field-sports.  "He  spent  liis  time 
henceforth,"  says  his  biographer  in  hunting,  and 
feasting  his  friends,  and  writing  his  histories."  And 
ere  long  he  had  in  Scillus  a  charming  souvenir  of  his 
adventures  with  the  Cyreian  army.  To  explain  this  it 
must  be  mentioned  that  when  the  Greek  army  reached 
the  Euxine  in  their  retreat,  they  sold  the  prisoners 
whom  they  had  taken  in  various  skirmishes  by  the 
way,  and  divided  the  proceeds.  The  tenth  part  of 
the  money  realized  was  set  apart  to  be  dedicated  to 
Appllo  and  to  Diana  of  Ephcsus,  and  each  general 
was  intrusted  with  a  portion  of  this  sum  to  take  charge 
of.  It  seems  probable  that  Xenophon  was  forced,  by 
the  exigencies  of  the  subsequent  march,  to  spend  the 
portion  which  had  been  intrusted  to  him.  But  when 
he  returned  to  Athens,  enriched  with  the  ransom  of 
Asidates,  he  caused  an  offering  to  Apollo  to  be  made, 
and  to  be  inscribed  with  his.  own  name  and  that  of 
his  friend  Proxenus,  and  this  he  sent  to  Delphi. 
Afterwards,  when  serving  with  Agesilaus  in  Asia,  he 
replaced  the  amount  which  was  due  to  the  goddess 
Diana,  and  handed  it  over  for  safe  keeping  to  Mega- 
byzus,  the  warden  of  her  temple  at  Ephesus.  He 
stipulated  that  if  he  should  fall  in  the  campaign, 
Megabyzus  was  to  devote  the  money  to  an  offering  in 
the  Ephesian  temple,  but  otherwise  to  restore  it  to 
him. 

When  Xenophon  had  taken  up  his  abode  at  Scillus, 
Megabyzus  came  over  on  one  occasion  to  see  the 


76 


XENOPIION. 


Olympic  games,  and  lie  brought  with  him  the  deposit 
and  restored  it.  Xenophoa  invested  the  money  in 
lands  to  be  devoted  in  permanence  to  the  goddess. 
Not  only  had  Diana  signified  her  approval  of  the  site 
by  omens  in  sacrifice,  but  also  there  appeared  to  be  a 
peculiar  appropriateness  in  the  domain  selected.  In 
the  first  place,  it  was  an  excellant  hunting-ground,  and 
therefore  suitable  for  the  divine  huntress;  and  also,  by 
a  strange  coincidence,  there  was  a  stream  running 
through  it  called  Selinus,  which  was  also  the  name  of 
a  stream  running  close  to  the  temple  of  Diana  at 
Ephesus.  In  both  rivers,"  adds  Xenophon — speaking 
somewhat  after  the  manner  of  Fluellen — there  are  fish 
and  cockles."  Here  he  caused  a  temple  and  altar  to  be 
raised,  and  a  statue  of  the  goddess  in  cypress  wood  to 
be  set  up — exact  copies,  though  on  a  reduced  scale,  of 
the  world-famous  temple  and  altar  and  golden  statue  at 
Ephesus.  And  he  appointed  an  annual  festival  to  be 
held,  which  was  attended  by  men  and  women  of  the 
surrounding  country,  who  pitched  tents  on  the  sacred 
ground,  and  were  supplied  by  the  goddess  herself 
with  barley-meal,  bread,  wine,  sweetmeats,  and  a  share 
of  the  victims  offered  from  the  sacred  pastures,  and  of 
those  caught  in  hunting;  for  the  sons  of  Xenophon  and 
of  the  other  inhabitants  always  made  a  hunt  against  the 
festival,  and  such  of  the  men  as  wished  hunted  with 
them;  and  there  w^ere  caught,  partly  on  the  sacred 
lands  and  partly  on  Mount  Pholoe,  boars  and  antelopes 
and  deer." 

The  picture  presented  to  us  by  Xenophon  of  his  life 
at  Scillus  is  quite  idyllic,  and  thoroughly  Greek.  A 
certain  phase  of  religion  predominates  over  the  whole, 
but  it  is  the  bright,  picturesque,  and  easy  religion 
common  among  the  Aryan  races,  which  is  so  different 


THE  I'VUTUNES  OF  THE  TEN  TUOUSAND,  77 


from  Semitic  earnestness,  and  which  consists  in  doing, 
under  the  name  of  divine  authority,  what  men  would 
have  been  most  inclined  to  do  without  it.  Hunting  for 
the  glory  of  Diana,  cultivating  his  farm,  writing  his 
books,  and  living  in  social  intercourse  with  all  comers, 
— these  elements  made  up  the  existence  of  Xenophon  at 
Scillus,  during  the  best  years  of  his  long  life. 

*  "  Not  wholly  in  the  busy  world,  nor  quite 
Beyond  it  "— 

he  lived  in  retirement  from  contemporary  politics,  and 
yet  was  always  supplied  with  information  as  to  their 
progress,  of  which  he  must  have  taken  careful  notes  for 
his  future  history. 

It  is  not  quite  certain  whether  he  was  permitted  to 
end  his  days  in  this  charming  retreat.  One  account  says, 
that  after  the  defeat  of  his  Lacedaemonian  patrons  at  the 
battle  of  Leuctra,  B.C.  371,  he  was  forced  to  abandon  it, 
and  that  he  retired  to  Corinth.  Another  account  de- 
clares that  he  was  only  subjected  to  a  law-suit,  but  that 
he  retained  his  lands,  and  died  at  Scillus.  However 
this  may  be,  Athens  became  reconciled  to  Sparta,  and 
the  sentence  of  banishment  against  Xenophon  was  re- 
voked. His  two  sons,  Gryllus  and  Diodorus,  fought 
among  the  Athenian  knights  in  the  cavalry  action 
which  formed  the  prelude  to  the  battle  of  Mantinea,  B.C. 
362;  in  which  battle  Gryllus  was  slain,  after  manifesting 
distinguished  bravery.  Xenophon  must  have  been 
about  sixty- nine  years  old  at  this  time.  They  say  that 
he  was  performing  a  sacrifice,  with  a  garland  on  his 
head,  which  he  took  off  when  the  news  was  brought  to 
him  that  his  son  had  fallen,"  but  when  the  messenger 
added  **  nobly,"  he  replaced  it;  and  he  would  not  weep, 
for  he  said,  "  I  knew  that  my  son  was  mortal."    This  is 


78 


JLh'IiOFIIOli, 


the  last  anecdote  wlAcn  is  recorded  of  Zenophon  *^  th 
wise."    But  lie  appears  to  have  lived  long  afterwar^is, 
and  to  have  attained  his  ninetieth  year. 

Time  has  been  very  lenient  with  the  works  of  Xeno- 
phon.  We  possess  all  the  books  ascribed  to  him  by 
Diogenes  Laertius.  They  are  as  follows :  *' Hellenica," 
**  Anabasis,"  *  **  Cyropaedeia,"  Eecollections  of  So- 
crates," Apology  of  Socrates,"  ^Agesilaus,",  The 
Constitution  of  Athens,"  ''The  Constitution  of  Sparta," 
**Hiero,"  *' The  Banquet,"  ''On  the  Athenian  Revenues," 
**  On  Domestic  Economy,"  "Hipparchicus,"  "On  Horse- 
manship," "On  Hunting."  A  glance  at  this  list  will 
show  what  a  wide  and  varied  field  is  covered 
by  the  writings  of  Xenophon,  and  what  a  rich 
mine  they  constitute  of  information  relative  to 
events,  great  men,  ideas,  arts,  and  manners  in 
Greece  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  and  through  the  first  half 
of  the  fourth  century  B.C.    In  our  present  apergu  of 


*  It  is  curious  that  in  the  "  Hellenica"  (iii.  1,  2)  Xenophon  says 
that  "  the  history  of  the  expedition  of  Cyrus,  and  of  the  return 
of  the  Greeks  in  safety  to  the  sea,  has  been  written  by  Theraisto- 
genes  the  Syracusan."  This  passage  has  given  rise  to  two 
theories  to  account  for  the  statement  it  contains.  One  is,  that 
Themistogenes,  as  well  as  Xenophon,  had  written  an  account  of 
the  expedition  of  Cyrus — that  the  inferior  work  was  eclipsed  and 
forgotten,  but  that  Xenophon,  through  modesty,  mentioned  that 
account  instead  of  his  own.  The  other  theory  is  suggested  by 
Plutarch,  namely,  that  Xenophon,  having  a  double  interest  in  the 

Anabasis,"  as  author  and  as  actor  in  the  military  events 
described,  preferred  his  reputation' in  the  latter  capacity  to  th© 
fame  which  he  might  get  as  an  author  ;  and,  therefore,  to  gain 
full  credence  for  the  somewhat  self-glorifying  history,  attributed 
it  to  another  hand.  The  second  theory  seems  the  more  probable. 
At  all  events,  the  ancients  unanimously  regarded  the  "Anabasis" 
as  the  work  of  Xenophon,  and  not  even  German  criticism  has 
thrown  any  doubt  on  this  belief. 


THE  FORTUNES  OF  TEE  TEN  THOUSAND,  79 


Xenophon,  it  will  be  impossible  for  us  to  attempt  to  give 
the  contents  of  the  Hellenica,"  which  is  a  contemporary 
record  of  affairs  in  Greece  from  the  year  411  to  the  year 
362  B.C.  To  do  so  would  be  to  epitomize  Greek  his- 
tory, which  is  not  the  object  of  this  little  book.  Readers 
wishing  to  follow  out  that  part  of  the  subject,  can  best 
do  so  by  consulting  Mr.  Grote's  great  work  (vols.  ix. 
and  X.),  or  they  will  find  a  summary  and  criticism  (per- 
haps rather  too  severe)  of  the  Hellenica"  of  Xenophon 
in  Colonel  Mure's  Critical  History  of  the  Language  and 
Literature  of  Ancient  Greece,"  vol.  v.  p.  265-323.  The 
remaining  works  in  the  above  list  all  more  or  less  come 
within  our  scope,  as  bringing  this  ancient  Greek  writer 
and  his  times  directly  before  us.  In  the  Anabasis," 
which  we  have  already  epitomized,  we  have  a  narrative 
from  personal  observation  comparable  in  some  respects 
to  the  **  Commentaries"  of  Caesar,  or  Mr.  Kinglake's  In- 
vasion of  the  Crimea."  In  the  "  Cyropsedeia"  (or  Edu- 
cation of  Cyrus")  we  have  the  earliest  specimen  extant 
of  a  historical  romance.  In  the  *  *  Memorabilia"  (or  ' '  Re- 
collections"), Xenophon  plays  the  part  of  a  Boswell,  and 
gives  us  the  actual  conversations  of  his  master,  Socrates. 
The  *' Agesilaus"is  the  embodiment  of  the  hero-wor- 
ship" of  Xenophon  for  his  admired  patron  the  King  of 
Sparta.  The  Constitutions  of  Athens  and  Sparta  are 
perhaps  the  oldest  remaining  specimens  of  the  political 
tract  or  pamphlet.  The  ' '  Hiero"  is  a  disquisition,  in  the 
form  of  dialogue,  on  the  characteristics  of  despotic 
government.  "The  Banquet  "  is  a  description,  real  or 
imaginary,  of  a  **fast"  supper  party  at  Athens,  and  of 
the  conduct  and  discourse  thereat  of  the  wise  and  moral 
Socrates.  The  Revenues  of  Athens  "  contains  some  of 
Xenophon's  ideas  on  finance  and  political  economy. 
The    Domestic  Economy"  treats,  in  two  dialogues,  of 


80 


XENOPIIOK 


farm  and  household  management.  The  "  Hipparchicus, " 
or  Cavahy  Officer's  Manual,"  contains  suggestions  by 
an  experienced  tactician  for  the  improvement  of  the 
cavalry  arm  of  the  Athenian  service.  The  Horseman- 
ship "  is  a  treatise  on  choosing,  keeping,  and  sitting  the 
horse.  In  the  Hunting"  Xenophon  appears  somewhat 
in  the  character  of  an  Izaak  Walton,  and  describes  en- 
thusiastically his  favorite  sport. 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  "RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOCRATES." 

The  ''Memorabilia" — or,  as  the  Greek  name  should 
rather  have  been  translated,  the  "Memoranda" — the 
"  Recollections,"  or  "  Notes  from  the  Conversations,"  of 
Socrates,  ranks  second  by  general  repute  among  the 
works  of  Xenophon.  But  it  is  the  interest  of  the  name 
of  Socrates,  and  the  fact  of  its  professing  to  be  a  genuine 
matter-of-fact  record  of  what  he  said,  that  gives  this 
book  its  importance.  Xenophon  has  not  in  reality  the 
qualifications  of  a  Boswell.  We  have  always  a  feeling, 
in  reading  the  conversations  which  he  records,  that  his 
notes  could  only  have  been  accurate  in  a  lower  sense. 
The  matter  of  the  dialogue  was  given,  or  attempted  to 
be  given,  but  the  delicacy  of  the  form  was  lost.  The 
words  employed  look  like  paraphrase  reports  of  the 
substance  of  what  Socrates  said,  or  appeared  to  Xeno- 
phon to  say,  and  they  fail  to  bring  the  distinctive  per- 
sonality of  the  speaker  before  us.  Plato,  as  most  people 
are  aware,  wrote  imaginary  philosophical  dialogues  in 
which  he  constantly  introduces  Socrates.  And  it  is  to 
these  imaginary  and  dramatic  dialogues  that  we  must 
refer,  to  explain  and  complete  the  "  Recollections  ^' of 


mE    RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOCRATES^  81 


Xenoplion.  Those  who  know  Plato  can  "read  between 
the  lines  "  of  Xenoplion,  and  see  that  much  which  the 
hitter  represents  as  bluntly  said  was  in  all  probability 
accompanied  by  delicate  intellectual  turns,  which  the 
quick  and  impatient  soldier's  mind  of  Xenophon  did 
not  appreciate  or  think  worth  reproducing  in  detail. 
The  ancients  were  agreed  that  nothing  was  more  strik- 
ingly characteristic  of  Socrates  than  his  "irony,"  which 
consisted  in  a  sort  of  mock  deference,  always  in  good 
taste,  to  those  whom  he  was  going  to  instruct.  Of  the 
exact  nature  of  this  manner  of  his  we  should  know 
nothing  from  Xenophon  or  any  one  else,  were  it  not  for 
the  dramatic  representation  of  it  in  Plato.  Again,  from 
Plato  we  learn  to  believe  that  Socrates  was  one  of  the 
finest  "gentlemen"  that  ever  lived;  in  the  heat  of  argu- 
ment not  wounding  the  susceptibilities  of  any ;  answering 
insolence  with  superior  repartee,  but  never  triumphant 
or  offensive;  always  entering  into  the  feelings  of  others; 
and  always  conveying  intellectual  instruction  under  the 
forms  of  urbanity  and  good-breeding.  The  account  of 
him  in  Xenophon  is  not  inconsistent  with  this  idea,  but 
would  never  have  fully  suggested  it.  But  the  work  of 
Xenophon  has  after  all,  a  certain  value  of  its  own.  It 
gives  a  solid  basis  of  facts,  and  prevents  one  from  think- 
ing that  the  Socrates  of  philosophy  was  a  mere  creation 
of  the  genius  of  Plato.  We  shall  now  take  some  of  the 
most  salient  of  those  facts,  and  endeavor  thus  to  put 
before  our  readers  one  of  the  most  strange  and  wonder- 
lul  men  that  ever  lived. 

According  to  the  descriptions  both  of  Plato  and  of 
Xenophon,  which  are  corroborated  by  antique  gems, 
Socrates  had  a  strong  burly  figure,  prominent  and  crab- 
like eyes,  a  flat  nose  with  broad  open  nostrils,  a  large 
and  thick-lipped  mouth,  and  a  forehead  indicative  of 


82 


XENOPIION, 


great  mental  power.  Everything  about  him  conveyed 
the  idea  of  force,  character,  and  originality.  His  father 
had  been  a  sculptor,  and  his  mother  a  midw^ife.  He 
was  bred  up  to  liis  father's  profession,  and  followed  it 
for  a  time  with  some  success;  and  a  statue  which  he 
executed  of  the  Graces  was  preserved  in  tlie  Acropolis 
of  Athens.  In  time  of  war  he  served  his  country  *  as  a 
heavy- armed  soldier,  and  was  in  action,  and  distin- 
guished himself,  at  the  siege  of  Potidsea  and  aft  the  bat- 
of  Delium.  Xenophon  omits  to  mention  one  peculiar- 
ity of  Socrates  which  we  learn  from  Plato — namely,  his 
strange  fits  of  protracted  reverie,  almost  amounting  to 
trance.  But  he  is  full  of  allusions  to  the  Daemon,  or 
divine  mentor,  under  whose  guidance  Socrates  laid  claim 
to  act.  The  whole  life  of  Socrates  was  represented  by 
himself  as  being  ordered  under  the  direction  of  internal 
signs  from  the  gods,  which  told  him  what  to  do  and 
what  not  to  do.  He  thoroughly  believed  in  the  reality 
of  these  intimations,  which  perhaps  all  of  us  have  at 
at  times,  without  recognizing  and  obeying  them.  But 
Socrates  by  habit  learnt  more  and  more  to  recognize  and 
obey.  And  thus  his  whole  life  took  the  form  of  a  mis- 
sion, which  consisted  in  improving  others,  both  in  intel- 
lect and  character,  by  his  conversations. 

Socrates  was  twice  married,  having  first  espoused 
Xanthippe,  whose  name  has  unfortunately  become  a 
byword  in  history  for  a  shrew. f   By  her  he  had  a 


*  The  army  system  of  Athens,  hke  that  of  modern  Prussia,  re- 
quired "every  citizen  to  be  trained  as  a  soldier,  and  to  serve  in 
time  of  need.  The  enrolment  was  between  the  ages  of  eighteen 
and  fifty-eight.  Socrates  must  have  been  .about  forty-six  years 
old  at  the  battle  of  Delium. 

t  Diogenes  Laertius,  Athenaeus,  and  Plutarch,  all  state  that 
Socrates  was  married  twice.  At  the  time  of  his  death  he  had 


THE  ''RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOCRATES^  83 


son,  and  in  all  probability  Xanthippe  may  have  had 
many  a  word  with  him  on  the  subject  of  his  not  going 
on  with  his  profession,  and  making  money  to  keep  his 
family  in  comfort.  But,  by  inheritance  or  otherwise, 
he  had  some  very  small  means,  and  instead  of  increas- 
ing these  to  meet  the  desires  of  ordinary  people,  he  de- 
termined to  cut  down  his  wants  to  what  he  had,  and  thus 
he  voluntarily  adopted  a  life  of  austere  simplicity  and 
poverty,  entirely  devoted  to  what  he  considered  his 
spiritual  calling.  India  of  the  present  day  throws  light 
on  many  of  the  features  of  ancient  Greek  society,  and 
in  India  such  lives  of  renunciation  and  of  contented  pov- 
erty are  not  un frequent.  Often  in  the  Indian  bazaars 
may  you  see  Socrates,  or  something  like  him,  in  the 
person  of  some  stout  Brahman,  good-humoredly  loung- 


one  grown-up  son,  Lamprocles,  and  two  infants.  The  "  Memo- 
rabilia" mentions  a  conversation  with  Lamprocles,  who  com- 
plained of  his  mother's  temper,  while  Socrates  good-naturedly 
urged  that  it  was  of  no  consequence.  But  who  was  tlie  mother 
of  Lamprocles  ?  Diogenes  says  that  the  two  wives  were  Myrto 
(granddaughter  of  Aristides)  and  Xanthippe,  but  that  it  is 
doubtful  which  was  the  first  wife.  Evidently  the  first  wife,  the 
mother  of  Lamprocles,  was  the  scold.  Plato  in  the  "  Phsedo  " 
definitely  mentions  Xanthippe  as  coming  to  the  condemned  cell 
of  Socrates.  This  would  make  her  the  second  wite.  Equally 
definitely  Xenophon,  in  the  "  Banquet  "  [see  below,  p.  108],  men- 
tions Xanthippe  as  married  to  Socrates,  and  as  famous  for  her 
bad  temper,  twenty  years  before.  This  would  probably  make 
her  the  first  wife.  Between  these  two  authorities  the  issue  must 
lie.  On  the  whole,  in  a  matter  of  the  kind  it  seems  more  likely 
that  Plato  made  a  shp.  Xanthippe's  name  was  perhaps  so  fa- 
miliar as  being  the  wife  of  Socrates,  that  Plato  forgot  the  second 
marriage  with  Myrto  when  introducing  the  wife  in  the  death 
scene,  at  which  he  was  not  himself  present.  Poor  Xanthippe's 
tongue  had  probably  been  "  stopped  with  dust"  ere  that  scene 
occurred.  The  attempts  to  "  rehabilitate  "  her  come  to  this,  that 
Socrates  could  not  have  been  a  very  comfortable  husband . 


84 


XENOPIION. 


ing  about  in  loose  robes  and  with  bare  legs,  ready  to  dis- 
cuss for  hours,  with  all  comers,  any  topic  that  may  turn 
up,  but  for  preference  some  point  of  Yedanta  philoso- 
phy. The  resemblance  is  doubtless  an  external  one, 
yet  still  there  is  the  same  simple  notion  of  life,  con^ 
tented  with  the  barest  necessaries,  and  cheered  by  the 
play  of  the  intellect  in  talk. 

But  the  talk  of  Socrates  was  not  idle — it  was  alwaya 
directed  to  a  definite  purpose.  Every  conversation  was 
meant  to  produce  a  result,  and  to  leave  the  person  who 
had  talked  with  Socrates  in  a  better  condition  than  be- 
fore— either  with  truer  views  as  to  the  conduct  of  life, 
or  disabused  of  some  fallacy,  or  stimulated  to  inquire 
about  some  point  in  a  deeper  way  and  after  a  sounder 
method.  For  such  talk  he  laid  himself  out  and  made 
it  his  daily  business.  In  the  morning  he  regularly  fre- 
quented the  gymnasia  and  exercise-grounds;  at  noon, 
when  the  market  was  full,  he  was  to  be  found  there; 
for  the  rest  of  the  day  lie  went  wherever  the  citizens  of 
Athens  happened  most  to  be  congregated.  Socrates  thus 
became  *'an  institution"  and  a  public  character;  and  as 
such  he  was  caricatured  by  Aristophones  in  a  comedy 
called  ''The  Clouds,"  in  which  Socrates  was  represented, 
miserable  and  half  starved,  keeping  a  ''thinking  shop," 
in  which  the  most  absurd  speculations  were  ventilated. 
This  public  raillery  probably  did  Socrates  no  harm,  and 
was  not  the  least  resented  by  him. 

But  in  them  remitting  pursuance  of  his  missionary  ca- 
reer for  the  improvement  of  his  fellow-citizens,  Socrates 
made  himself  many  enemies.  There  are  always  people 
who  do  not  wish  to  be  improved,  especially  after  they 
have  got  to  a  certain  age,  and  who  resent  the  attempt  to 
improve  them  as  an  impertinence.  Again,  with  all  the 
grace  and  good-breeding  of  the  manner  of  Socrates,  it 


THE  ''RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOCRATES:'  85 


was  his  invariable  object  to  show  people  that  they  did 
not  know  so  much  about  things  as  they  themselves  im- 
agined. And  this  operation  was  applied  in  the  most 
unsparing  way  to  persons  who  were  considered  to  be 
quite  "authorities"  on  political  and  other  questions. 
We  can  hardly  wonder  that  such  a  species  of  practice 
should  have  raised  up  for  the  practitioner  a  plentiful 
crop  of  unpopularity.  Public  men  found  themselves 
assailed,  before  crowds  of  people,  with  vexing  questions 
which  they  were  unable  to  answer.  They  found  their 
prestige  impaired,  and  their  minds  thrown  for  the  first 
time  into  an  attitude  of  self -mistrust.  They  must  in 
many  instances  have  hated  the  very  sight  of  Socrates, 
but  there  was  no  escaping  him,  for  he  had  nothing  else 
to  do  but  always  to  be  in  market  and  forum,  and  all  pub- 
lic places,  ready  to  annoy.  The  young  entertained  a  dif- 
ferent feeling  about  him.  Socrates  had  a  great  love  for 
the  society  of  youth,  especially  of  the  clever  and  prom- 
ising. They  afforded  him  the  most  hopeful  materials  to 
work'upon;  their  minds  were  plastic,  the  prejudices  less 
inveterate,  their  ardor  uncooled,  and  th.eir  curiosity 
undulled  by  time  and  custom.  Socrates  constant!}'' 
drew  around  him  a  band  of  such  young  men,  over 
whom,  by  his  versatile  originality  and  many-sided 
talk,  he  exercised  a  great  fascination.  These  consti- 
tuted the  Socratic  school,  which,  by  following  out  the 
suggestions  of  their  master  into  various  directions,  cre- 
ated or  commenced  all  that  was  best  and  most  valuable 
in  ancient  philosophy.  Among  these,  the  most  eminent 
were  Euclid  (not  the  geometrician)  of  Megara ;  Antis- 
theues,  founder  of  the  Cynics;  Aristippus  of  Cyrene; 
and  the  lovely-minded  Plato.  Xenophon,  probably 
when  about  eighteen  years  old,  became  one  of  the  disci- 
ples of  Socrates,  but  the  bent  of  his  mind  was  entirely 


86 


XENOPIION. 


practical,  and  he  contributed  nothing  to  the  develop- 
ment of  philosophy,  and  wrote  no  philosophical  book, 
properly  so  called.  Many  other  youths  of  the  Socratic 
following  took  afterwards  to  political  life,  for  which  the 
training  they  had  received  in  reasoning  and  discussion 
formed  a  useful  preparation.  Some  turned  out  badly 
enough,  and  it  was  made  a  reproach  to  Socrates  that 
Alcibiades,  who  betrayed  his  country,  and  Critias,  who, 
as  one  of  the  Thirty  Tyrants,  became  her  cruel  oppress- 
or, had  been  among  his  pupils. 

The  very  influence  which  Socrates  exercised  over 
young  men  became  a  cause  of  his  being  held  in  suspi- 
cion  and  dislike  by  the  peres  de  famille  of  Athens. 
He  was  thought  to  fill  the  mind  of  youth  with  new- 
fangled ideas,  and  to  teach  boys  to  lose  respect  for 
their  own  fathers,  substituting  a  preposterous  inde- 
pendence of  spirit  for  the  obedience  natural  to  their 
age.  In  the  year  399  B.C.,  when  Socrates  had  for  at 
least  thirty  years  pursued  his  mission,  and  when  he 
was  more  than  seventy  years  of  age,  the  feeling  of 
unpopularity,  which  he  had  excited  found  its  culmina- 
tion, owing  apparently  to  the  circumstance  that  he  had 
endeavored  to  prevent  the  son  of  one  Anytus,  a  rich 
tradesman  and  powerful  demagogue,  from  following  his 
father's  trade  as  a  leather-seller.  The  boy  appears  to 
have  been  full  of  promise,  and  Socrates  wished  him 
to  choose  a  more  intellectual  career.  Anytus,  however, 
was  incensed,  and  took  counsel  on  the  matter  with 
others  who  bore  a  grudge  against  Socrates,  and  among 
them  with  Mel^tus  a  poet,  and  Lycon  a  rhetorician. 
Poets  and  rhetoricians  were  both  among  the  classes 
of  j)eople  whose  claims  to  knowledge  of  the  truth 
Socrates  had  constantly  impugned,  and  the  two  persons 
above  named  had  probably  each  suffered  under  his 


THE  ''RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOCRATES:'  87 


public  refutations.  Tlie  result  of  their  conference  was, 
that  one  day  there  appeared,  in  regular  form,  posted 
up  at  the  office  of  the  King-Archon,  one  of  the  chief 
civil  magistrates  at  Athens,  an  indictment  signed  with 
the  names  of  Meletus,  Anytus,  and  Lycon,  in  the  fol- 
lowing terms:  Socrates  is  guilty  of  crime,  first,  in  not 
believing  in  the  gods  that  the  city  believes  in;  secondly, 
in  introducing  other  new  gods;  thirdly,  in  corrupting 
the  youth.    The  penalty  due  is — death." 

The  appearance  of  this  indictment,  and  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  day  for  it  to  be  tried,  must  have  caused  a 
great  sensation  at  Athens.  But  Socrates  himself  re- 
mained apparently  unconcerned,  talking  of  all  other 
subjects  except  his  approaching  trial ;  and  one  of  his 
frie,nds  (who  afterwards  told  the  story  to  Xenophon) 
asked  him  if  he  h  ^  prepared  his  defense.  To  this  he 
replied  that  his  whole  previous  life  had  been  a  prepara- 
tion, having  been  spent  in  studying  what  was  right, 
and  endeavoring  to  do  it.  He  added  that  it  had  oc- 
curred to  him  to  think  what  he  should  say  before  his 
judges,  but  that  he  had  received  the  divine  intimation 
to  forbear.  ''Possibly  the  gods  thought  it  better  for 
him  to  die  now  than  to  continue  to  live,  and  no  wonder, 
for  hitherto  he  had  lived  most  happily  with  a  conscioius- 
ness  to  himself  of  progressive  moral  improvement,  and 
with  the  esteem  and  love  of  his  friends.  Were  he  to 
live  on  now,  he  might  find  his  faculties  impaired,  and 
then  the  dignity  and  pleasure  of  his  life  would  be  gone. 
Were  he  to  be  put  to  death  by  his  judges,  he  was  confi- 
dent that  by  posterity  he  would  be  regarded  as  one  who 
had  suffered  wrongfully,  but  had  done  no  wrong  to 
others,  having  only  endeavored  to  make  all  men  better." 

Socrates  was  tried  before  a  dicastery,  or  jury,  con- 
sisting of  the  large  number  of  557  Athenian  citizens. 


88 


XENOPUOK 


Mel^tus  appears  to  have  stated  the  case  for  the  prose- 
cution, and  it  was  left  to  Socrates  to  defend  himself. 
In  a  trial  of  the  kind,  and  before  such  a  tribunal,  the 
issue  was  sure  to  turn  on  the  animus,  favorable  or 
otherwise,  created  by  the  speeches  of  the  different 
parties  on  the  minds  of  the  jurymen.  They  were  doubt- 
less all  practised  in  the  discharge  of  their  function, 
which  in  litigous  Athens  every  one  was  constantly 
called  on  to  fulfill.  On  such  occasions  they  were  ac- 
customed to  be  conciliated  by  those  who  pleaded  before 
them,  and  they  would  expect  as  a  matter  of  course  to 
be  conciliated  by  Socrates.  But  Socrates  condescended 
to  nothing  of  the  kind.  His  "  Apology"  or  "  Defense" 
has  been  reported  both  by  Xenophon  and  Plato.  The 
latter,  as  usual,  puts  into  the  mouth  of  his  master  a 
speech  in  more  beautiful  style  and  in  sublimer  strain 
than  that  which  he  really  uttered.  Xenophon  merely 
gives  rough  heads  of  the  topics  which,  he  had  heard, 
were  used.  But  the  general  purport  of  both  accounts 
is  the  same.  Socrates,  without  addressing  himself  to 
the  task  of  persuading  his  judges  and  saving  his  own 
life,  spoke,  as  Mr.  Grote*  well  says,  *'for  posterity." 
Instead  of  submitting  explanations  of  his  own  conduct, 
he  treated  it  as  something  of  which  he  could  only 
speak  with  a  just  pride.  He  gave  indeed  a  distinct 
denial  to  the  charge  that  he  had  shown  any  want  of 
orthodoxy  toward  the  national  religion,  as  he  could 
call  all  to  witness  that  he  had  always  joined  in  the 
public  sacrifices.  But  with  regard  to  the  second  count 
— that  he  had  introduced  new  gods — he  denied  that  his 
belief  in  the  divine  signal  was  anything  different  in  kind 
from  the  belief  that  other  men  had  in  omens  and  augu- 


*  History  of  Greece,  vol.  viii.  p.  654. 


THE  ''RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOGRATESr  89 


ries.  He  asserted  emphaticallj''  as  a  fact  the  divine 
communications  which  he  had  received,  and  said  that 
his  friends  had  often  benefited  by  the  predictions  which 
he  had  been  able  to  make  to  them.  And  this  statement 
created  an  unfavorable  impression  on  the  jury,  for  some 
disbelieved  him,  and  others  were  offended  at  his  claim 
to  a  special  inspiration. 

Turning  now  to  the  third  count,  that  he  had  cor- 
rupted young  men,  he  gave  a  history  of  his  mode  of 
life,  the  turning-point  of  which  had  been  that  the  oracle 
of  Apollo  at  Delphi  had  pronounced  him  the  wisest  of 
men.  Thts  avowal  caused  a  fresh  expression  of  disap- 
probation from  the  jury;  but,  according  to  the  account 
of  Plato,  Socrates  softened  the  seeming  arrogance  of  the 
boast,  by  adding  that  he  himself  had  wondered  why  the 
god  should  have  pronounced  him  wise,  when  he  was 
conscious  of  knowing  nothing.  He  had  resolved  to  test 
the  truth  of  the  oracle  by  comparing  himself  with 
others.  Hence  he  began  to  question  those  who  had  a 
high  reputation,  but  their  answers  did  not  satisfy  him. 
tie  tried  men  of  all  sorts,  but  invariably  found  that  they 
had  the  show  of  knowledge  without  the  reality.  Thus 
he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  god  called  him  wisest, 
because,  though,  knowing  no  more  than  other  men,  he 
alone  was  conscious  to  himself  of  his  own  ignorance. 
Henceforth  he  considered  it  his  mission  to  lead  other 
men  to  know  themselves;  and  as  to  the  youth  whom  he 
had  gratuitously  instructed,  so  far  from  corrupting 
them,  'he  had  invariably  drawn  them  on  to  modesty, 
manliness,  and  virtue.  "Ay,"  interrupted  Meletus, 
"but  I  have  known  some  whom  you  persuaded  to  obey 
you  rather  than  their  parents."    *'  Yes,"  said  Socrates, 

about  matters  of  education,  for  they  knew  I  had 
v>pecially  studied  this  subject.     About  health  people 


90 


XENOPIIOK 


obey  the  physician,  and  not  their  parents;  and  in  state 
affairs  or  war,  you  choose  those  who  are  skilled  to  be 
your  leaders.  Why  then,  in  the  most  important  thing 
of  all,  education,  should  not  I  be  allowed  to  be  an  au- 
thority, if  I  am  really  such?  or  why  should  my  claim- 
ing this  be  made  a  ground  for  thinking  me  worthy  o 
death?" 

From  these  specimens  of  the  defense  of  Socrates,  any 
one  can  see  in  what  a  lofty  spirit  of  conscious  rectitude 
it  was  cooceived.  On  such  of  the  jury  as  had  petty 
minds,  perhaps  already  full  of  prejudice  against  Ihe 
defendant,  and  looking  at  all  events  to  see  him  humble 
himself  before  them,  his  independent  words  were  sure 
to  fall  unfavorably;  and  yet  there  was  suflScient  gen- 
erosity among  the  dicasts  to  make  the  majority  against 
him  a  small  one.  As  many  as  276  of  their  number 
were  for  acquitting  him,  while  281  voted  that  he  was 
guilty  of  the  charges  brought  against  him.  Even  at 
this  point  he  might  have  been  saved,  for  the  sentence 
was  not  yet  passed,  and,  according  to  Athenian  custom, 
the  condemned  person  had  the  privilege  of  proposing 
some  punishment,  in  which  he  would  acquiesce,  milder 
than  that  proposed  by  the  prosecutor.  But,  as  we 
learn  from  Plato,  Socrates  would  not  even  now  show 
any  submission  to  the  majority  who  had  condemned 
him.  He  said,  proudly,  that  ''what  he  w^as  conscious 
of  having  merited  w^as,  to  be  maintained  at  the  public 
expense  as  a  benefactor  to  the  State;  at  the  solicitation  of 
his  friends,  however,  he  would  name  as  a  counter-pen- 
alty, instead  of  death,  a  fine  of  thirty  minse  (£120), 
which  his  friends  were  ready  to  pay  for  him."  This 
proposition,  or  the  manner  in  which  it  was  made, 
sealed  the  doom  which  he  had  apparently  hardly  de- 
sired to  escape.    The  jury  now,  by  a  separate  vote,  of 


TEE  ''RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOCRATES^  91 


which  we  do  not  know  the  numbers,  sentenced  him  to 
suffer  death. 

For  the  glowing  details  of  the  last  days  and  conver- 
sations of  Socrates,  given  truly  to  the  idea  if  not  to  the 
actual  fact,  we  must  refer  our  readers  to  the  **Phaedo" 
of  Plato.  Xenoplion  shortly  summarizes  the  matter, 
saying  that  *'by  universal  acknowledgment  no  man 
ever  endured  death  with  greater  glory  than  Socrates. 
He  was  obliged  to  live  thirty  days  after  his  sentence, 
for  the  Delian  festival  happened  to  be  going  on  at  the 
time,  and  the  law  allowed  no  one  to  suffer  capital  pun- 
ishment until  the  sacred  deputation  which  was  sent  on 
these  occasions  to  the  Isle  of  Delos  should  have  re- 
turned. During  that  time  Socrates  was  seen  by  all  his 
friends,  living  in  no  other  way  than  at  any  preceding 
period,  with  the  same  cheerfulness  and  trauquillity 
for  which  he  had  always  been  remarkable.  What 
death  could  have  been  more  noble  or  more  happy  than 
this?" 

In  many  respects  the  end  of  Socrates  may  indeed  be 
regarded  as  a  euthanasia.  There  was  nothing  like  the 
shame  of  a  public  execution,  or  the  horror  of  a  violent 
death,  to  be  endured.  In  privacy,  amid  a  circle  of 
friends  and  admirers,  the  cup  of  hemlock  was  to  be 
drunk  which  would  painlessly  extinguish  the  vital  pow- 
ers, and  that  too  at  a  period  of  life  when  of  themselves 
they  might  soon  have  ceased.  Such  were  the  mitigat- 
ing external  circumstances;  while  inwardly  there  was 
*'the  royal  heart  of  innocence,"  the  high  enthusiasm 
which  has.  enabled  so  many  to  meet  with  cheerfulness 
a  martyr's  death,  and  the  philosophic  reason  which  en- 
tirely triumphed  over  the  animal  instincts,  which  saw 
things  as  a  whole,  and  which  counted  the  loss  a  gain. 
When  AppoUodorus,  one  of  his  disciples,  said, 


92 


XENOPIION. 


grieve  most  for  this,  Socrates,  that  I  see  you  about  to 
die  undeservedly,"  he  answered,  stroking  the  head  of 
his  pupil  with  a  smile,  *'My  dearest  AppoUodorus, 
would  you  rather  see  me  die  deservedly?"  When  some 
of  his  friends  suggested  a  plan  for  his  escape,  at  which 
the  Athenians  would  probably  have  connived,  he  said, 
' '  I  am  willing  to  fly  if  you  can  tell  me  any  country  to 
fl}'  to  where  death  does  not  await  me."  Seeing  Anytus 
pass  by,  he  remarked,  This  man  is  elated  as  if  he  had 
done  something  great  and  noble  in  causing  my  death, 
because,  when  I  saw  him  occupying  the  highest  offices 
in  the  state,  I  said  that  he  ought  not  to  bring  up  his  son 
among  the  ox-hides.  How  foolish  he  is  not  to  know 
that  whichever  of  us  has  done  what  is  best  and  noblest 
for  all  time,  he  is  the  superior."  When  his  friends 
asked  what  he  wished  done  with  his  body,  he  said, 
"You  may  do  with  it  w^hat  you  like,  provided  you  do 
not  imagine  it  to  be  me." 

To  modern  ideas  there  may  seem  to  be  something 
wanting  in  this  picture;  we  might  have  preferred  to 
see  the  strong  light  relieved  by  shadow,  by  some 
touch  of  nature  at  the  thought  of  parting  from  family 
and  friends,  by  some  human  misgivings  on  the  threshold 
of  the  unknown.  But  the  ancients  must  be  judged 
by  their  own  standards.  The  Greek  ideal  was  one  of 
strength,  and  widely  different  from  the  later  and  deeper 
Christian  ideal  of  strength  made  perfect  in  weakness. 
Socrates  was  the  noblest  of  the  Greeks,  and  in  almost  all 
respects  his  life  is  worthy  to  be  made  an  example  to  all 
time. 

Xenophon  does  not  regard  the  death  of  his  master 
(so  dignified  and  happy)  as  in  itself  a  subject  of  pity 
and  regret.  Nor  does  he  even  express  any  strong 
indignation  against  the  authors  of  it;  he  merely  ex- 


THE  ^'RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOCRATES:'  93 


presses  wonder  that  tlie  Athenians  could  have  found 
Socrates  guilty  of  the  charges  brought  against  him. 
And  the  ostensible  object  of  his  ''Recollections'*  is 
to  show  by  an  array  of  facts  that  Socrates  was  neither 
unorthodox,  nor  impious,  nor  a  corrupter  of  youth. 
Xenophon's  book  looks  like  an  argument  addressed  to 
the  Athenian  people,  and  it  is  certainly  quite  popular 
and  practical  in  its  object  and  point  of  view.  Hence, 
while  recording  the  conversations  of  that  philosopher 
whose  conversations  introduced  a  new  form  and 
method  into  philosophy,  Xenophon  seems  to  leave  the 
form  and  method  of  what  was  said  out  of  considera- 
tion, and  to  restrict  himself  to  quoting  the  matter,  in 
order  to  show  that  the  thoughts  were  tliose  of  a 
morally  good  man.  Such  an  undertaking  in  reference 
to  Socrates  was  poor  and  limited;  it  tells  us  about 
Socrates  as  a  man,  but  obliges  us  to  seek  Socrates  the 
philosopher  in  the  imaginative  pages  of  Plato.  And 
the  worst  is  that  we  are  left  in  doubt — a  doubt  which 
can  never  be  removed — how  far,  in  representing  the 
philosophical  tenets  of  Socrates,  Plato  has  attributed  to 
him  too  much,  and  Xenophon  too  little.  In  bringing 
Xenophon's  ''Memorabilia"  to  the  knowledge  of  Eng- 
lish readers,  we  must  leave  philosophical  formulae  out 
of  the  question,  and  give  shortly  such  of  the  recorded 
sayings  as  may  seem  most  interesting. 

Socrates,  it  appears,  made  a  point  of  not  departing 
frpm  conformity  with  the  usual  religious  ceremonies  of 
his  country.  He  also  encouraged  others  in  the  use  of 
divination,  while  he  himself  relied  on  the  intimations 
of  his  daemon  or  familiar  spirit.  He  appears  to  have 
divided  the  affairs  of  life  into  two  classes,  one  falling 
under  the  domain  of  art  and  science,  about  which  men 
might  be  perfectly  certain  by  the  use  of  their  own  rea- 


94 


XENOPEOK 


son,  and  on  which  therefore  it  would  be  absurd  to  con- 
sult the  gods.  The  other  class  consisted  of  things 
uncertain  in  their  issue — as,  for  instance,  whether  it 
would  be  of  advantage  to  make  a  particular  marriage; 
and  on  such  subjects  he  advised  that  the  gods  should 
be  consulted  by  means  of  augury. 

He  disapproved,  according  to  Xenophon,  of  the 
speculations,  so  common  among  philosophers,  into  the 
nature  and  origin  of  the  universe.  He  thought  that 
such  inquiries  could  lead  to  no  certainty,  and  produced 
no  result.  He  considered  "the  proper  study  of  man- 
kind "  to  be  "man."  And  he  professed  to  limit  him- 
self to  discoursing  on  human  affairs,  considering  what 
was  just,  what  unjust ;  what  was  sanity,  what  insanity; 
what  was  courage,  what  cowardice ;  what  was  a  state ; 
wherein  consisted  the  character  of  the  true  statesman ; 
how  men  were  to  be  governed;  and  the  like. 

With  regard  to  prayer,  he  made  a  point  of  not  ask- 
ing for  definite  things,  not  knowing  whether  they  would 
be  good  for  him.  But  he  prayed  the  gods  to  give  him 
what  it  would  be  best  for  him  to  have,  which  they  alone 
could  know.  Owing  to  his  poverty,  his  sacrifices  were 
small;  but  he  believed  that,  if  offered  in  a  pious  spirit, 
they  would  be  equally  accepted  by  the  gods.  And  he 
used  to  say  that  it  was  a  good  maxim,  with  regard  to 
friends,  and  guests,  and  all  the  relations  of  life,  "  per- 
form according  to  your  ability." 

When  Athens  was  under  the  Thirty  Tyrants,  Critias, 
an  old  pupil  of  Socrates,  was  one  of  them.  By  cruel 
proscriptions  they  had  put  many  of  the  citizens  to 
death,  on  which  Socrates  compared  them  to  "herds- 
men who,  being  intrusted  with  cattle,  reduced  instead 
of  augmenting  the  number  of  their  herd."  The  remark 
was  repeated  to  Critias,  who,  being  stung  by  it,  and 


THE  ''RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOCRATES:'  9> 


also  bearing  a  grudge  against  his  former  master  for 
certain  rebukes  that  he  remembered,  passed  a  law  that 
**no  one  should  teach  the  art  of  disputation,"  and 
sending  for  Socrates,  he  required  his  attention  to  it. 
Socrates,  on  hearing  him,  put  on  his  usual  humble  de- 
meanor, and  asked  to  be  informed  the  exact  purport  of 
the  prohibition — Was  the  art  of  reasoning  considered 
to  be  an  auxiliary  to  right  or  to  wrong?"  On  this,  one 
of  the  tyrants  got  angry,  and  said,  In  order  to  prevent 
all  doubt,  Socrates,  we  require  you  not  to  discourse  with 
the  young  at  all."  Socrates,  nothing  daunted,  asked  to 
be  informed  more  accurately  what  they  meant  by  "  the 
young?"  Up  to  what  age  was  he  to  consider  a  man 
"young?"  They  said,  "up  to  thirty."  He  then  asked 
for  a  definition  of  "discourse."  Might  he  not  inquire 
the  price  of  a  thing,  or  any  person's  residence,  from  a 
man  under  thirty?  "  Yes,"  said  Critias,  "  but  you  must 
now  abstain  from  talking  about  those  shoemakers,  car- 
penters, and  smiths  that  you  used  to  have  always  in 
your  mouth."  "What!"  said  Socrates,  "must  I  give 
up  speaking  of  justice  and  piety  and  other  subjects,  to 
illustrate  which  I  am  in  the  habit  of  referring  to  those 
trades?"  **Ay,  by  Jupiter!  you  must,"  said  another 
of  the  Thirty;  "and  you  must  stop  speaking  of  herds- 
men, too,  else  you  may  chance  yourself  to  make  the  cat- 
tle fewer."  This  conversation  shows  the  coolness  of 
Socrates  under  the  "reign  of  terror  *  at  Athens.*  It 
shows,  too,  his  unpopularity,  act'  how  utterly  alienated 
from  him  a  former  pupil  had  become. 

Perhaps  the  most  often  quoted  conversation  of  Socra- 
tes is  that  which  he  held  with  a  young  man  named 


*  Xenophon  tells  us,  in  another  place,  that  Socrates  did  not  pay 
the  slightest  attention  to  the  order  of  the  Tyrants. 


96 


XENOPIION. 


Aristodemns,  who  affected  to  despise  religious  observ- 
ance. Having  obtained  from  him  the  admission  that  he 
reverenced  the  genius  of  creative  artists,  Socrates  asked 
him  how  he  could  avoid  reverencing  the  intelligent  de- 
sign so  copiously  exhibited  in  the  framework  of  man — 
in  the  adaptation  of  tlie  organs  to  the  different  objects 
of  sense — in  the  admirable  defense  provided  by  means 
of  the  eyelids  and  eyelashes  for  the  eye — in  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  incisor  and  molar  teeth — in  the  maternal 
instinct,  and  all  the  instincts  of  self-preservation  which 
keep  our  species  from  destruction.  He  asked  if  all  this, 
as  well  as  all  the  orderly  mechanism  of  the  heavens, 
could  be  the  work  of  chance  ?  Aristodemus  replied 
that  he  could  not  see  any  directors  of  the  universe.  To 
which  Socrates  retorted,  "Why,  you  cannot  see  your 
own  soul,  the  director  of  your  body,  and  you  might  as 
well  say  that  all  your  own  actions  are  the  result  of 
chance."  Aristodemus  now  shifted  his  ground,  and 
said,  "I  do  not  ignore  the  divine  power,  but  I  think  it 
too  grand  to  need  my  worship."  "The  grander  it  is," 
said  Socrates,  "surely  the  more  it  should  be  honored  by 
you,  if  it  condescends  to  take  care  of  you."  Aristode- 
mus said  that  the  difficulty  with  him  was  to  believe  that 
the  gods  took  any  thought  for  men.  On  which  Soci-a- 
tes,  to  prove  the  divine  Providence,  pointed  out  the 
highly-favored  position  occupied  by  man  among  the 
animals — the  privileges  of  reason;  the  warnings  sent  to 
nations  and  individuals  by  omens  and  auguries;  and  the 
analogy  between  the  mind  ruling  over  and  directing  the 
body,  and  the  universal  intelligence  which  must  be  con- 
ceived as  pervading  all  things  and  directing  their  move- 
ments. In  fine,  he  recommended  Aristodemus  to  make 
practical  trial  of  the  habit  of  worship,  and  of  consulting 
the  gods  by  divination. 


THE  ''RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOCEATES."  97 


Such  was  the  natural  theology  of  Socrates,  as  recorded 
by  Xenophon.  In  it  we  find  the  argument  from  final 
causes,  just  as  it  is  used  by  Paley;  and  an  analogical 
representation  of  God  as  bearing  the  same  relation  to 
the  world  which  the  individual  soul  does  to  the  body. 
And  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is  made  to  be  a 
recommendation  to  practical  piety. 

Xenophon  says  that  it  is  due  to  Socrates  not  to  omit 
the  conversation  which  he  had  with  Antiphon,"  a  Soph- 
ist or  professional  lecturer  of  the  day.  This  man  had 
taunted  Socrates  on  his  bare  feet  and  scant  clothing — 
the  same  in  winter  as  in  summer — on  his  spare  diet,  and 
on  the  general  wretchedness  of  his  mode  of  life.  **If 
Philosophy,"  he  proceeded,  **be  your  mistress,  you  get 
from  her  a  worse  maintenance  than  any  slave  would  put 
up  with  from  his  master.  It  is  all  because  you  will  not 
take  money — money  that  cheers  the  recipient,  and  ena- 
bles him  to  live  in  a  more  pleasant  and  gentlemanlike 
way.  You  really  set  your  pupils  a  bad  example  in  this; 
you  are  teaching  them  to  live  as  miserably  as  yourself, 
and  you  are  acting  as  if  your  instructions  had  no  value, 
else  why  should  you  give  them  for  nothing  ?"  To  this 
Socrates  replied,  that  doubtless  Antiphon  would  not 
relish  his  mode  of  life,  but  that  for  himself  it  had  the 
charm  of  independence;  that,  as  he  was  paid  by  no  one, 
he  owed  no  service  to  any  one;  that  his  plain  diet  gave 
him  as  much  pleasure  as  their  luxuries  gave  to  others; 
that  he  was,  in  bodily  condition,  always  ready  for  any- 
thing; that,  above  all,  he  had  the  happy  consciousness 
of  always  growing  better  himself,  and  of  seeing  friends 
about  him  who  were  constantly  improved  in  their 
moral  natures  ;  that  to  want  nothing  was  to  be  like 
tlie  gods,  and  that  his  aim  was,  in  this  point,  to  make 
some  approach  to  the  divine  perfection.    With  regard 


98 


XENOPHON. 


to  taking  money  for  his  instructions,  he  said  that  there 
were  two  things,  either  of  which  to  sell  was  prostitution 
— namely,  personal  beauty  and  wisdom.  .  Those  who 
sell  their  wisdom  for  money  to  any  that  will  buy,  men 
call '  Sophists,'  or,  as  it  were,  a  sort  of  md^Q  demi-monde; 
whereas  whoso,  by  imparting  knowledge  to  another 
whom  he  sees  well  qualified  to  learn,  binds  that  other  to 
himself  as  a  friend,  does  what  is  befitting  to  a  good  citi- 
zen and  a  gentleman.  Some  men,"  continued  Socrates, 
"have  a  fancy  for  a  fine  horse,  or  a  dog,  or  a  bird; 
what  I  fancy  and  take  delight  in  is  friends  of  a  superior 
kind.  If  I  know  anything,  I  teach  it  to  them;  I  send 
them  to  any  one  by  whom  I  think  they  may  be  im- 
proved. In  common  with  them,  I  turn  over  and 
explore  the  treasures  of  the  wise  men  of  old  which  have 
been  left  written  in  books,  and  if  we  find  anything  good 
w^e  pick  it  out,  and  we  think  it  a  great  gain  if  we  can  be 
beneficial  to  one  another."  This  pleasing  picture  of  the 
Socratic  circle  of  friends  may  be  taken  as  a  set-off 
against  what  has  been  said  above  of  the  annoying  char- 
acter of  the  sage's  public  disputations.  Xenophon  tells 
us  that  when  Socrates  found  any  man  really  wishing  to 
learn,  he  desisted  from  vexing  him  with  diflaculties,  and 
did  his  best  to  assist  his  inquiries.  We  may  note  Uso 
the  severe  retort  upon  the  taunts  of  Antiphon,  in  tke 
w^ay  in  which  the  Sophists  are,  as  if  incidentally,  char^ 
acterized. 

Some  of  the  conversations  of  Socrates,  as  they  are 
related  in  the  Memorabilia,"  appear  less  calculated  to 
be  successful  in  producing  the  impression  they  aimed 
at.  With  regard  to  some  of  these,  it  is  impossible  to 
help  suspecting  that  they  have  been  eked  out  by 
Xenophon,  and  spoilt  in  the  process.  A  notable  in- 
stance of  this  kind  occurs  in  a  long  conversation  be- 


TEE    RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOCUATESr  99 


tween  Socrates  and  his  associate  Aristippiis,  afterwards 
the  famous  leader  of  the  school  of  pleasure.  Socrates 
observing  in  this  J^oung  man  a  too  great  tendency  to 
self-indulgence,  set  himself  to  counteract  this  ten- 
dency, and  he  did  so  by  establishing  the  incompatibility 
of  a  soft  aud  self-indulgent  life  with  the  career  of  a 
statesman  and  the  government  of  others.  Aristippus 
replied  that  he  had  not  the  faintest  desire  to  govern  any. 
Socrates  then  asked,  whether  it  was  happiest  to  be  gov- 
erned or  to  govern?  Aristippus  said  that  he  meant  to 
avoid  both  the  one  and  the  other;  and  that,  in  order  to 
prevent  being  placed  in  either  position,  lie  proposed  to 
himself  to  be  a  cosmopolite,  and  to  travel  about  from 
state  to  state.  Now  on  this  announcement  of  the  views 
of  Aristippus  we  can  have  no  doubt  that  the  Socrates  of 
Plato  would  have  made  an  effective  attack,  in  some  way 
or  other,  by  wit  and  raillery — perhaps  by  drawing  a 
ridiculous  picture  of  the  cosmopolite  mode  of  life. 
But  the  Socrates  of  Xenophon  does  nothing  of  the  kind. 
He  maintains  a  rather  pedantic  earnestness,  and  lectures 
away  on  the  superior  happiness  of  higher  aims.  He 
quotes  Hesiod  and  Epicharmus  to  prove  that  virtue  and 
exertion  are  good  things,  and  finally  gives  at  full  length 
the  allegory  of  Prodicus,  known  as  **the  choice  of 
Hercules."  Hercules,  when  a  young  man,  met  two 
females  at  a  cross-road — one  called  Vice,  meritricious 
in  dress  and  form;  the  other  called  Virtue,  beautiful, 
dignified,  and  noble.  Each  made  offers  and  promises 
to  induce  him  to  accompany  her.  These  offers  and 
promises  were  the  descriptions,  from  a  mor#\l  point  of 
view,  of  a  virtuous  and  vicious  life  respectively.  Such 
was  the  sermon,  borrowed  from  one  of  the  Sophists, 
which  Xenophon  represents  Socrates  as  having  preached 
on  this  occasion.    Nothing  could  have  been  less  quali- 


100 


XENOPHON, 


fied  to  produce  an  impression  on  a  man  of  tlie  world 
like  Aristippus.  And  we  may  be  sure,  if  the  real 
Socrates  was  at  all  like  what  Plato  has  led  us  to  imagine 
him,  that  he  never  spoke  exactly  as  here  represented. 
Several  dialogues,  occupying  the  middle  part  of  the 

Memorabilia,"  are  of  the  same  goody  "  character,  and 
entirely  devoid  of  the  racy  cleverness  and  biting  wit 
which  Socrates  was  in  the  habit  of  using.  Colonel 
Mure  indeed  suspects  that  Xenophon  has  ''made  his 
master  the  mouthpiece  for  his  own  conceptions."  At 
all  events,  if  he  has  given  us  actual  recollections  or  tra- 
ditions of  Socrates,  he  has  served  up  many  of  them  in 
such  a  way  as  to  deprive  them  entirely  of  the  Socratic 
flavor.  There  would  be  no  interest  in  dwelling  over  such 
discourses  as  that  in  which  the  Xenophontic  philoso- 
pher recommends  two  brothers  to  be  good  friends  with 
each  other ;  or  those  in  which  he  dilates  on  the  advan- 
tages and  duties  of  friendship.  Such  matter  as  this  is 
moral  and  well-intentioned  enough,  but  it  would  not 
have  required  the  ''daemon"  of  Socrates,  or  his  own 
demon-like  ability,  to  reveal  it  to  the  world. 

Another  set  of  anecdotes  has  a  faintly  superior  inter- 
est, in  which  Socrates  is  represented  as  advising  his 
friends  in  their  practical  difficulties.  One  of  them  is 
in  straits  because  his  lands  have  been  occupied  by  the 
enemy,  and  he  can  get  no  revenue  from  them,  while  he 
has  a  large  household  of  slaves  to  support.  Socrates 
advises  him  to  make  the  slaves  weave  clothes  for  sale; 
and  the  experiment  is  successful.  A  second  friend  is 
reduced  to  beggary  by  war,  and  Socrates  recommends 
him  to  became  some  rich  man's  steward.  A  third  has 
plenty  of  means  at  his  disposal,  but  is  troubled  by  the 
so-called  sycophants  or  informers,  bringing  vexatious 
suits  in  order  to  extort  money  from  him.    Socrates  tells 


THE  ''RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOCRATES^  101 


him  how  to  retain  the  services  of  a  clever  poor  man, 
who  acts  as  his  solicitor,  and  defeats  the  sycophants 
with  their  own  weapons.  We  speak  of  a  faint  interest 
ataching  to  these  stories;  and  it  consists  merely  in  this, 
that  they  exhibit  Socrates  as  constituting  himself  ad- 
viser-general to  his  friends  in  matters  of  all  descriptions. 

One  group  of  dialogues  in  the  Memorabilia "  is 
concerned  with  political  or  military  topics.  Socrates 
is  represented  in  these  as  giving  advice  to  young 
aspirants  for  offices  of  command  in  the  state  or  the 
army.  In  some  of  these  we  observe  a  suspicous 
affinity  to  certain  favorite  speculations  of  Xenophon's 
on  the  improvement  of  cavalry,  and  on  measures  to 
be  taken  for  the  revival  of  the  Athenian  power.  In 
otliers  we  find  vague  platitudes  inflicted  on  the 
listener,  such  as  that  it  is  the  duty  of  a  general 
to  render  those  under  him  happy."  In  ono  there  is  a 
glaring  piece  of  sophistry — so  glaring,  and  so  opposed 
to  the  ordinary  doctrines  of  Socrates,  tuat  it  is  worth, 
quotation.  There  is  no  rule  which  the  sage  is  oftener 
represented  as  enforcing  in  all  forms,  than  that  no 
man  should  undertake  to  perform  or  superintend  any 
business  of  which  he  has  not  competent  special  knowl- 
edge. This  maxim  was  entirely  of  a  piece  with  what 
we  know  from  elsewhere  of  the  Socratic  docrine,  that 
virtue  itself  is  knowledge,  and  .e  an  art.  Now,  in 
the  fourth  chapter  of  the  third  book  of  the  Memo- 
rabilia," one  Nichomachides  is  represented  as  coming 
disgusted  from  the  election  of  office-bearers,  and  com- 
plaining to  Socrates  that  the  Athenians  was  capricious 
as  ever — that  after  long  military  service,  with  credit, 
in  all  the  lower  grades  of  command,  and  after  receiving 
many  wounds  in  action,  his  claims  had  now  been  set 
aside,  and  another  man,  who  had  hardly  seen  any  ser- 


102 


XENOPHON. 


vice,  and  who  knew  nothing  except  how  to  make  money, 
had  been  chosen  general.  Socrates,  however,  did  not 
give  the  least  sympathy  to  the  complainant.  He  took 
the  opposite  side,  and  declared  that  he  who  is  a  good 
man  of  business  has  capacities  for  managing  anything, 
whether  it  be  a  family,  a  city,  or  an  army.  In  vain  did 
Nichomachides  argue  that  when  it  came  to  fighting,  tho 
good  man  of  business  might  find  himself  at  a  loss. 
'*  Not  at  all,"  said  Socrates  ;  "he  will  see  exactly  what 
is  to  be  aimed  at,  and  take  the  proper  means  according- 
ly." The  paradox  here  is  so  great  that  we  can  hardly 
help  believing  that  the  conversation  actually  took  place, 
though  Xenophon  is  not  subtle  enough  to  point  out,  or 
perhaps  to  see,  its  bearing.  On  the  one  hand,  we  ob- 
serve Socrates  giving  way  to  the  love  of  contradiction, 
which  is  apt  to  be  engendered  in  those  |who  are  ac- 
customed to  be  looked  up  to.  It  is  like  Dr.  Johnson 
"sitting  upon"  one  of  his  admirers.  Again,  Nicho- 
machides may  have  been  a  very  stupid  man,  and  really 
unfit  for  command,  which  would  give  a  justification  to 
the  line  taken  against  him.  Still  further,  it  may  be 
said  that  it  was  part  of  the  Socratic  method,  as  revealed 
by  Plato,  though  not  by  Xenophon,  to  see  different 
sides  to  every  truth.  In  one  sense  it  is  true  that  special 
experience  is  required  for  every  department ;  but  it  is 
also  true  that  general  ability  is  available  in  whatever 
sphere  it  be  applied. 

Socrates  was  not  always  allowed  to  take  the  aggres- 
sive side  in  discussion.  He  w:.s  sometimes  cross-ques- 
tioned after  his  own  fashion,  and  put  upon  his  mettle. 
Aristippus,  who  had  very  little  reverence  in  his  com- 
position, is  reported  to  have  attacked  him  with  the  in- 
quiry, "whether  he  knew  anything  good?"  in  order 
that,  if  he  mentioned  anything  usually  considered  good 


THE  ''RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOCRATES:'  103 


sucli  as  health,  strength,  etc.,  Aristippus  might  refute 
him  by  proving  that  it  was  sometimes  an  evil.  But 
Socrates  parried  the  question,  asking  in  return,  '*Good 
for  what?  Do  you  mean  good  for  a  fever?"  "  No,'» 
said  Aristippus,  "I  do  not."  "Good  for  sore  eyes?" 
"No."  "  Good  for  hunger  "No;  not  that;"  "Well, 
then,"  said  Socrates,  "if  you  mean  to  ask  me  whether 
I  know  anything  good  which  is  not  good  for  anything 
in  particular,  I  neither  know  such,  nor  do  I  wish  to 
know  it."  The  tables  are  thus  cleverly  turned,  and 
Socrates  obtains  a  dialectical  victory  by  silencing  his  op- 
ponent. In  doing  so,  he  commits  himself  to  the  posi- 
tion that  "  good  "  is  a  relative  idea,  and  that  he  has  no 
conception  of  any  absolute  good.  An  antagonist  worthy 
to  encounter  him  would  have  followed  him  up  into  this 
position,  and  would  have  asked,  "If  goods  are  manifold 
and  relative,  how  do  you  account  for  their  common 
name?"  And  to  this  Socrates  would  have  had  to  give 
an  answer  wiiich  would  have  revealed  to  us  his  exact 
opinion  on  the  nature  of  universal  terms. 

Aristippus,  however,  relinquishing  this  point,  took  up 
another,  and  asked  Socrates  "if  he  knew  anything 
beautiful?"  He  replied,  "Yes,  many  things."  On 
which  it  was  asked  "whether  these  were  all  alike?"  and 
Socrates  said,  "  On  the  contrary,  very  unlike."  "  Then 
how  can  they  be  all  beautiful?"  To  this  Socrates  re- 
plied by  giving  a  theory  of  the  Beautiful,  which  identi- 
fied it  with  the  relative  good,  or,  in  other  w^ords,  the 
Useful.  "  What!"  said  Aristippus,  "can  a  dung-basket 
be  beautiful ?"  "  Of  course  it  can,"  said  Socrates;  "and 
a  golden  shield  can  be  very  ugly,  if  the  one  be  well 
fitted  for  its  proper  use,  and  the  other  not."  Pursuing 
this  theme,  he  applied  his  doctrine  to  beauty  in  archi- 
tecture, asserting  that  it  simply  consisted  in  the  adapta- 


104 


XENOPIIOK 


tion  of  buildings  to  the  use  for  which  they  were  in- 
tended. Thus  he  said  that  paintings  and  frescoes  on 
the  walls  of  houses  often  detracted  from  the  comfort, 
and  therefore  from  the  beauty,  of  those  houses,  by 
necessitating  the  building  of  the  walls  in  a  particular 
^^Jj  by  which  the  sun  was  too  much  excluded.  We 
have  here  the  first  statement,  crudely  made,  of  that 
relative  theory  of  beauty  which  was  adopted  in  modern 
times  by  Alison,  Jeffrey,  and  others.  We  cannot  tell 
how  far  it  embodied  the  real  opinion  of  Socrates,  be- 
cause when  great  men  discuss  things  with  their  pupils, 
we  cannot  be  sure  how  far  they  open  their  whole  mind. 
And  we  know  it  to  have  been  the  object  of  Socrates 
rather  to  awaken  inquiry  than  to  give  results.  That  his 
hints  took  root  and  germinated  in  the  minds  of  others, 
we  may  see  abundantly  from  the  luxuriant  and  varied 
thought  of  Plato. 

Other  theories  of  Socrates  given  in  the  Memora- 
bilia" might  seem  to  require  qualification.  As,  for 
instance,  that  Temperance  and  all  the  other  virtues  are 
identical  with  Wisdom.  This  ignores  all  distinction 
between  the  intellect  and  the  will  of  man,  and  is  op- 
posed to  acknowledged  facts.  In  arguing  with  Hippias, 
who,  like  Aristippus,  tried  to  confute  him  with  ques- 
tions, Socrates  laid  it  down  that  Justice  consists  in 
obeying  the  laws.  This  position,  by  itself,  would 
hardly  be  maintained,  for  it  would  amount  to  what  in 
modern  times  has  been  called  *'Hobbism,'*  which 
makes  the  legislator  a  creator  of  right  and  wrong. 
But  Socrates  modifies  the  theory  by  saying  that  in  ad- 
dition to  the  laws  of  the  state  there  are  * '  unwritten  laws  '* 
which  are  in  force  among  all  mankind,  or  which,  if 
not  recognized,  bring  their  own  punishment.  As  an 
instance  he  mentions  the  rule  that  parents  must  not 


THE  ''RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOCRATESr  105 


many  their  children,  for  which  he  gives  the  apparently 
insufficient  sanction  that  such  marriages  would  imply 
a  too  great  disparity  of  age.  Another  instance  of  an 
unwritten  law  here  given  is,  that  "  men  must  do  good 
to  those  who  have  done  good  to  them."  In  the  doc- 
trine that  justice  consists  in  obeying  the  laws,  Socrates 
doubtless  had  an  important  meaning  in  view — namely, 
he  wished  to  protest  against  the  too  great  individualism 
of  his  times,  and  to  assert  that  the  first  duty  of  man  is 
to  consider  himself  as  a  social  being,  bound  up  with  his 
fellow-men  in  a  great  organism,  of  which  the  laws  of 
his  country  are  the  expression.  But  to  follow  out  such 
questions,  and  to  attempt  to  fix  more  definitely  the 
position  of  Socrates  in  the  history  of  philosophy,  w^ould 
be  beyond  the  scope  of  this  chapter,  and  indeed  it  would 
be  undertaking  more  than  the  whole  Memorabilia"  of 
Xenophon  would  furnish  data  for. 

We  have  already  given  the  chief  features  of  that 
book.  It  is  not  necessary  to  go  minutely  into  the  con- 
versations of  Socrates  with  Parrhasius  the  painter,  and 
Clito  the  sculptor.  The  teacher  seems  to  have  been  a 
little  carried  away  by  the  lust  of  giving  advice,  when 
he  lectured  these  artists  on  choosing  beautiful  subjects, 
and  on  making  their  figures  express  the  emotions  of  the 
mind.  In  talking  with  a  corslet-maker,  he  appears  to 
have  aimed  at  getting  a  logical  definition  of  what  was 
meant  by  a  corslet  fitting  w^ell."  The  story  of  his 
visit  to  Theodota,  a  beautiful  courtesan,  is  perhaps  best 
told  of  all  the  tales  in  the  Memorabilia,"  and  if  we 
make  certain  allowances  for  the  manners  and  ideas  of 
the  age,  it  gives  most  idea  of  the  Socratic  grace  and 
versatile  politeness.  Socrates  evidently  tried  to  draw 
on  this  lady,  in  the  course  of  talk,  to  some*  degree  of 
moral  elevation,  but  she  did  not  understand  him^  so  he 


106 


XENOFHON. 


gradually  and  gracefully  backed  out  of  the  interview. 
Socrates  was  of  far  too  catholic  a  spirit  to  consider  any 
class  or  phase  of  society  excluded  from  the  scope  of 
liis  mission.  But  he  was  not  a  man  to  throw  pearls  be- 
fore swine;  he  adapted  himself  to  the  atmosphere  in 
which  he  found  himself,  but  always  endeavored  indi- 
rectly to  purify  and  improve  it,  and  if  much  could  not 
be  done  in  this  wa}^  to  do  a  little. 

A  somewhat  fuller  picture  of  Socrates  discharging 
this  last-named  function  is  given  by  Xenophon  in  the 
*' Banquet,"  an  imaginary  dialogue, "  which  represents 
the  philosopher  at  a  gay  Athenian  supper-party.  The 
incidents  related  are  as  follows:  A  beautiful  youth, 
named  Autolycus,  had  gained  the  victory  in  the  pan- 
cratium, or  contest  of  wrestling  and  boxing  at  the 
public  games.  Callias,  a  wealthy  Athenian,  a  friend 
of  the  boy's  father,  and  having  a  great  regard  for  him- 
self, gave  a  supper  in  his  honor.  Meeting  Socrates  and 
some  of  his  followers,  he  invited  them  to  come,  saying 
that  *'his  party  would  be  much  more  brilliant  if  the 


*  We  call  this  dialogue  imaginary,  from  internal  evidence.  The 
event  which  was  supposed  to  have  given  rise  to  the  supper  took 
place  B.C.  420.  Antisthenes  would  have  been  a  very  young  man 
in  420,  but  he  is  represented  in  the  dialogue  as  a  man  of  mature 
opinions  and  decided  cynical  mode  of  life.  Socrates,  also,  is 
described  as  quite  an  old  man.  Thus  chronology  is  confused. 
The  introduction,  which  is  abrupt,  speaks  of  "occurrences  at 
which  I  was  present."  But  Xenophon,  when  intending  to  men- 
tion himself ,  always  does  so  in  the  third  person— "  Xenophon 
did  this  or  that."  He  would  have  been  about  11  years  old  in  420 
B.C.  On  the  whole,  the  "Banquet"  must  be  taken  as  a  fancy 
sketch,  based  on  something  which  really  occurred.  It  was  per- 
haps the  first  attempt  at  a  dramatic  picture,  with  Socrates  for 
chief  figure,  and  may  have  suggested  to  Plato  the  form  of  his 
inimitable  dialogues,  to  which,  though  clever  in  its  way,  it  is  far 
inferior. 


THE  ''RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOCRATES:'  107 


rooms  were  graced  with  the  presence  of  men  of  culture 
and  refinement,  instead  of  being  filled  with  generals  and 
cavalry  officers,  and  political  place-hunters." 

When  they  were  seated,  the  dazzling  beauty  of  Au- 
tolycus  became  a  cynosure"  to  the.  eyes  of  all  the 
guests.  They  were  like  men  impressed  by  a  superior 
presence.  They  gazed  on  him  in  a  sort  of  awe,  and  pro- 
ceeded with  their  supper  in  silence.  This  mood  was 
interrupted  by  a  knocking  at  the  door,  and  Philippus,  a 
professional  buffoon,  requested  entrance.  He  was  told 
to  join  the  feast,  and  attempted  some  jokes,  which  at 
first  met  with  no  respone,  till  his  comic  expressions  of 
grief  at  finding  out  that  laughter  had  gone  out  of 
fashion,  and  that  his  occupation  was  gone,"  set  some  of 
the  guests  a  laughing. 

Presently  a  "nautch"was  introduced.  A  man  of 
Syracuse  brought  in  a  girl  who  played  on  the  flute,  and 
a  boy  and  girl  who  danced.  After  having  some  music, 
the  host  suggested  that  perfumes  should  be  handed 
round.-  Socrates  opposed  this,  saying  that  ''the  only 
odor  which  a  man  ought  to  relish  was  the  smell  of  the 
oil  used  in  the  gymnasia."  To  which  the  father  of  Au- 
tolycus  said,  That's  all  very  well  for  young  men, 
Socrates,  but  what  are  old  fellows,  like  you  and  me, 
who  no  longer  frequent  the  gymnasia,  to  scent  ourselves 
with?"  **AVith  the  odors  of  honor  and  virtue,"  said 
Socrates.  Wherein  it  was  asked  ' '  where  such  odors 
could  be  procured?"  And  an  incipient  discussion  arose, 
which  was  presently  dropped,  *  *  whether  virtue  could 
be  learned  from  others?" 

They  then  witnessed  some  feats  of  the  dancing-girl, 
who  threw  up  and  caught  twelve  hoops  to  the  sound  of 
music,  and  afterwards  threw  somersaults  through  a 
hoop  stuck  round  with  swords.    This  wonderful  ex- 


108 


XENOPHOK 


hibition  caused  Socrates  to  remark,  that  "the  talent  of 
women  is  not  at  all  inferior  to  that  of  men,  though  they 
are  weaker  in  bodily  strength.  So  that  any  one  who 
had  a  wife  might  confidently  instruct  her  in  whatever 
he  wished  her  to  know."  This  observation  caused  An- 
tisthenes  to  put  it  to  Socrates,  Why,  if  he  thought  so, 
did  he  not  educate  Xanthippe,  *  instead  of  leaving  her 
the  most  notoriously  ill-conditioned  wife  in  existence?" 
To  which  Socrates  replied,  that  as  those  who  wish  to 
excel  in  riding  often  choose  restive  horses,  because  if 
they  can  ride  these  they  will  easily  manage  any  others; 
so  he,  wishing  to  converse  and  associate  with  mankind, 
had  chosen  to  have  a  wife  of  this  kind,  knowing  that 
if  he  could  bear  her  society,  he  would  be  able  to  get  on 
with  any  one  elso  in  the  world." 

Then  the  boy  danced,  and  was  admired  by  all;  and 
Socrates  excited  much  amusement  by  telling  the  Syra- 
cusan  that  he  should  like  to  learn  dancing  from  him. 
When  the  company  laughed,  he  gravely  informed  them 
that  **he  was  sure  the  exercise  would  do  him  a  great 
deal  of  good;  it  called  out  all  the  powers  of  the  body, 
and  might  be  conveniently  practised  in  private,  which 
would  just  suit  him." 

Philippus,  the  jester,  now  gave  a  comic  parody  of 
the  boy's  dancing,  and  when  exhausted  with  his  exer- 
tions, called  for  some  wine,  which  Callias  commanded 
to  be  handed  round;  and  Socrates  gave  his  theory  of  the 
way  in  which  they  ought  to  drink — not  in  huge  quanti- 
ties at  once,  which  would  be  like  a  deluge  of  rain  beating 
down  the  plants,  but  in  small  cups  repeated  frequently, 
which  like  gentle  dew  would  refresh  their  spirits."  And 
this  mode  of  potation  was  made  the  order  of  the  night. 


*  See  above,  page  83,  Kote. 


THE     IlECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOCRATES:'  109 


There  was  more  music;  but  Socrates  urged  that  they 
ought  not  to  be  eutirely  dependent  for  their  amusement 
on  these  children,  but  should  by  conversation  entertain 
each  other.  The  question  now  arose,  "What  each  of 
party  most  prided  himself  on  ?" 

Callias  prided  himself  on  making  others  better. 

Niceratus,  on  knowing  all  Homer  by  heart. 

Critobulus,  on  his  beauty. 

Antisthenes,  on  his  wealth. 

Charmides,  on  his  poverty. 

Socrates,  on  his  powers  as  a  go-between. 

Lycon,  on  his  son  Autolycus. 

Autolycus,  on  his  father  Lycon. 

Hermogenes,  on  the  merit  and  power  of  his  friends. 

Then  they  had  to  justify  their  boasts,  and  it  turned 
out  that  Callias  was  proud  of  making  others  better,  be- 
cause he  did  so  by  giving  them  money,  so  as  to  render 
them  less  necessitous,  and  less  tempted  to  do  wrong. 
Niceratus  was  proud  of  his  knowledge  of  Homer,  as 
being  an  encyclopedia  of  wisdom.  For  present  pur- 
poses he  wished  to  apply  his  knowledge  by  asking  for 
an  onion,  which  Homer  said  was  the  proper  accom- 
paniment of  drink.  Critobulus  prided  himself  on  his 
beauty,  on  account  of  the  influence  it  had  over  others. 
Charmides,  on  his  poverty,  for  he  had  not  half  the 
trouble  since  he  had  lost  his  estates.  Antisthenes,  on 
his  wealth,  for  it  consisted  in  having  little,  but  w^anting 
less.  Hermogenes,  on  his  friends,  because  these  were 
the  gods  who  took  such  care  of  him,  as  to  intimate  by 
dreams  and  auguries  what  he  ought  to  do  and  what 
avoid.  Socrates,  on  his  skill  as  a  go-between,  which 
consisted  in  making  people  acceptable  to  others,  and  on 
a  larger  scale  pleasing  to  the  State.  And  this  he  ef- 
fected by  improving  their  minds.    All  these  different 


11^ 


XENOPHOK 


claims  and  assertions  led  to  various  repartees.  And, 
among  other  things,  Socrates  disputed  the  pre-emi- 
nence in  point  of  beauty  with  Critobulus.  The  beauty 
of  anything  consisting  in  its  adaptability  to  its  proper 
function,  Socrates  argued  that  his  own  prominent  eyes, 
which  could  look  to  the  sides,  must  be  handsomer  than 
those  of  Critobulus.  His  broad  nostrils,  more  adapted 
for  smelling,  must  be  handsomer  than  a  delicate  nose. 
His  huge  mouth,  which  could  contain  large  morsels, 
must  bear  off  the  palm.  A  ballot-box  was  handed 
round  among  the  guests  to  decide  this  rivalry,  but 
every  vote,  as  might  be  expected,  was  given  in  favor 
of  Critobulus. 

In  the  meantime  the  Syracusan  became  irritated  that 
the  attention  of  the  company  had  been  drawn  off  from 
the  troupe,  and  he  began  to  attack  Socrates  with  some 
quotations  from  the  ''Clouds"  of  Aristophanes,  calling 
him  * '  the  Thinker, "  and  asking  him,  '  *  How  many  fleas'  * 
feet  distant  he  was?"  which  some  of  the  others  were  for 
resenting  as  an  insult.  But  Socrates  good-humoredly 
passed  the  matter  over  with  some  light  badinage.  He 
turned  the  subject  by  himself  favoring  the  company 
with  a  song;  after  which  the  dancing  girl  performed 
some  feats  on  a  potter's  wheel.  On  which  Socrates 
made  a  remark  something  like  Dr.  Johnson's — "Very 
wonderful — would  it  were  impossible!"   And  he  added, 


*  One  of  the  absurdities  attributed  to  Socrates  in  the  "  Clouds" 
of  Aristophanes  (v.  145-199)  is,  that  he  undertook  to  demonstrate 
how  many  of  its  own  feet  a  flea  had  leapt,  in  jumping  from  the 
eyebrow  of  a  disciple  on  to  his  own  head.  He  is  represented  as 
having  solved  the  problem  by  catching  the  flea  and  plunging  one 
of  its  feet  into  melted  wax,  by  which  means  he  got  a  measure  of 
the  feet,  and  then  was  able  to  divide  the  total  distance  by  the  size 
obtained ! 


THE  " RECOLLECTIONS  OF  SOCRATESr  111 


that  after  all,  **  almost  everything  was  wonderful,  if 
people  did  but  consider  it.  For  instance,  why  did  the 
wick  of  the  lamp  give  light,  and  not  the  brass?  Why 
did  oil  increase  flame,  and  water  put  it  out?  In  oi;der, 
however,  not  again  to  disturb  hilarity  by  too  much  grave 
conversation,  he  would  suggest  that  the  dancers,  instead 
of  contorting  their  bodies,  should  perform  something 
(graceful  and  beautiful,  like  the  pictures  of  the  Graces, 
the  Hours  and  the  Nymphs." 

The  exhibitor,  pleased  with  this  suggestion,  went  out 
to  prepare;  and  Socrates,  having  the  coast  clear  for  a 
while,  gave  a  discourse  on  love,  distinguishing  the  heav^ 
cnly  from  the  earthly  Venus,  the  latter  inspiring  man- 
kind with  love  for  the  body,  the  former  with  the  love 
of  the  soul  and  of  noble  actions.  This  distinction  was 
copiously  illustrated  with  instances,  and  the  discourse 
ended  with  an  address  to  Autolycus,  exhorting  him  to 
nobility  of  life,  and  to  prepare  himself  for  serving  his 
country.  When  it  was  concluded,  the  actors  entered, 
and  performed  a  ballet,  representing  the  loves  of  Bac- 
chus and  Ariadne.  The  guests  now  retired  to  their 
homes;  but  Autolycus,  who  was  in  training,  set  out  to 
take  a  walk,  in  which  he  was  accompanied  by  the  host, 
his  father,  and  Socrates. 

And  here  we  must  take  leave  of  the  great  Athenian 
sage,  on  whom,  though  he  left  no  writing  of  his  own, 
so  many  volumes  have  been  and  will  be  written.  In 
another  imaginary  dialogue,  that  on  Household  Econ- 
om3%"  Xenophon  introduces  him,  but  only  to  make  him 
a  mouthpiece,  so  we  may  be  content  to  treat  that  work 
merely  with  reference  to  the  matter  of  its  contents. 
Xenophon's  representation  of  his  master  is  considered 
to  be  inadequate ;  and  yet  we  shall  have  failed  to  do  jus- 
tice even  to  that  representation,  if  we  have  not  led  our 


112 


XENOPHON. 


readers  to  conceive  of  Socrates  as  of  a  very  remarkable, 
wise,  and  lovable  being. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    '  EDUCATION  OF  CYRUS." 

The  Cyropsedeia,'*  or  "Education  of  Cyrus,"  is, 
like  the  Anabasis,"  *  misnamed.  For  only  the  first 
few  chapters  are  about  the  education,  properly  so 
called,  of  the  Persian  monarch.  The  remainder  of  the 
work,  extending  to  eight  books,  and  being  nearly  the 
largest  of  the  writings  of  Xenophon,  treats  of  the  suc- 
cessful exploits  of  Cyrus  as  a  general,  and  a  military 
and  civil  organizer,  under  his  uncle  Cyaxares,  till  he 
finally  receives  from  the  latter  the  hand  of  his  daughter 
in  marriage  and  is  placed  on  the  throne  of  Media.  The 
work  closes  with  an  account  of  the  distribution  into 
satrapies  of  the  countries  conquered  by  Cyrus;  and 
of  the  sage  advice  which  he  gave  when  his  death 
drew  nigh,  to  his  son  and  his  chief  officers  of  state — 
advice,  says  Xenophon,  which  was  but  too  much 
neglected  by  his  successors,  who  forgot  his  maxims,  and 
by  their  misrule  suffered  the  excellent  institutions  of 
Cyrus  to  fall  into  abeyance,  and  the  national  character 
of  the  Persians  to  decay. 

And  yet  the  name  conveys  generally  the  main  pur- 
pose which  Xenophon  apparently  had  in  view  when 
writing  this  work.  He  wished,  not  to  write  history, 
but  to  compose  a  historical  romance,  in  which  should 
be  depicted  a  perfect  governor  of  men.  And  the  per- 
fection of  the  generalship,  administration,  and  mon- 


*  See  page  12. 


THE  ''EDUCATION  OF  CYRUS."  113 


arcMcal  rule  of  Cyrus,  was  meant  to  be  attributed  in 
the  first  instance  to  the  excellent  education  *  which  he 
had  received  in  youtli.  All  is  of  a  piece  with  this  con- 
ception. The  hero  of  the  book  is  possessed  of  Utopian 
excellence.  His  virtues  are  unalloyed  by  any  vice,  and 
his  successes  by  a  single  reverse.  Evidently,  then,  we 
liave  before  us  one  of  those  novels  with  a  purpose 
which  have  been  common  enough  in  modern  times,  and 
which  are  generally  considered  to  be  rather  poor  works 
of  art.  Xenophon's  is  the  first  elaborate  production  of 
llic  kind  which  remains  to  us  from  antiquity,  though 
probably  the  allegorical  sermons  of  the  Sophists  (see 
above,  p.  99)  were  in  the  same  direction. 

In  giving  any  account  (and  much  will  not  be  required) 
of  the  •*  Education  of  Cyrus,"  we  must  remind  the 
reader  that  this  is  not  the  same  Cyrus  as  he  whom 
Xenophon  knew  personally,  and  under  whom  he 
marched  from  Sardis  to  Cunaxa.  The  Cyrus  of  the 
"  Anabasis"  (see  above,  p.  13)  was  a  mere  pretender  to 
the  Persian  throne,  and  died  B.C.  400.  The  Cyrus  of 
the  "  Cyropcedeia"  was  the  Great  Cyrus,  who  founded 
the  Persian  Empire,  and  died  about  535  B.C.  Of  this 
great  conqueror's  history  there  are  three  accounts  re- 
maining: the  first  is  that  of  Herodotus,  the  father  of 
history;  the  second  is  that  of  Ctesias,  a  Greek  physician, 
who  was  employed  at  the  court  of  Persia,  and  wrote  a 
history  of  the  country;  the  third  is  that  given  by  Xeno- 


♦Some  modern  translators  have  tried  to  find  a  name  which 
should  apply  to  the  whole  contents  of  the  book,  by  calling  it 
"The  Institution  of  Cyrus," — the  word  "institution"  being  in 
obsolete  English  capable  of  being  taken  for  "education,"  and 
also  being  applicable  to  the  "  form  of  goveritment "  described  as 
being  introduced  by  Cyrus.  But  the  wor4  poedeia  in  Cyrop86> 
deia  has  no  such  double  application. 


114 


XENOPUOK 


phon,  and  of  all  the  three  the  last  mentioned  is  generally 
considered  As  the  least  to  be  depended  on.  The  curious 
thing  is  that  Xenophon,  writing  what  he  meant  to  be  a 
historical  romance,  has  made  it  infinitely  tamer  than 
the  account  of  Cyrus  given  by  Herodotus,  who  aimed 
at  merely  setting  down  the  historical  facts  as  they  had 
been  told  him.  The  Cyrus  of  Herodotus  is  sent  out, 
when  newly  born,  by  his  grandfather  to  be  murdered; 
he  is  saved  by  interposition  of  Providence,  brought  up 
as  the  child  of  a  herdsman,  and  subsequently  recognized 
he  revolts  against  his  grandfather,  overthrows  the 
Median  kingdom,  founds  the  Persian  Empire,  and  fin- 
ally is  slain  in  a  great  battle  against  Tomyris,  queen  of 
the  Massagetse.  The  Cyrus  of  Xenophon  is  brought  up 
in  all  decorum  as  befitted  the  grandson  and  nephew  of 
a  king;  he  is  duly  appointed  to  high  offices  in  the  state, 
obtains  many  easy  victories,  and  inaugurates  many 
state  improvements;  he  succeeds  peacefully  to  the 
throne  of  his  uncle,  and  on  a  quiet  death-bed  gives  lec- 
tures to  his  admiring  friends  upon  the  art  of  govern- 
ment and  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  This  was  a 
case,  then,  in  which  truth  was  stranger  than  fiction; 
for  the  purpose  of  Herodotus  was  truth,  whereas  the 
purpose  of  Xenophon  was  fiction  of  a  particular  kind — 
not  the  fiction  which  grasps  the  poetry  of  human  life, 
but  the  dr}^  fiction  which  treats  all  incidents  as  a  mere 
framework  on  which  ethical  or  political  moralizings 
may  be  hung. 

It  may  be  supposed,  however,  that  Xenophon,  who 
under  the  j^ounger  Cyrus  had  penetrated  into  the  heart 
of  the  Persian  territory,  must  have  had  great  opportun- 
ities of  studying  Persian  customs,  and  that  his  book 
would  be  found  to  contain  valuable  information  with 
regard  to  those  customs,  and  to  the  Oriental  character 


TIIW  ''EDUCATION  OF  CYRUS:'  115 


viewed  on  its  best  side.  But  in  this  expectation  the 
reader  is  disappointed,  for  here  again  we  tind  that  it 
was  Xenophon's  object  to  set  forth,  -not  facts,  but  his 
own  conceptions  of  what  ought  to  be.  Throwing  the 
scene  of  his  Utopia  into  the  far  East,  and  the  time  of 
his  narrative  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  back,  he  ap- 
pears to  have  thought  himself  emancipated  from  restric- 
tions of  truth,  or  even  probability,  and  accordingly  he 
transfers  to  ancient  Persia  all  that  he  most  admired  ia 
the  Lacedjjemonian  institutions  of  his  own  time.  Evea 
the  distinctive  and  remarkable  characteristics  of  the 
Persian  religion  are  blurred  over  and  confused  by  his 
constantly  attributing  to  his  hero  the  performance  of 
sacrifices  according  to'  the  Grecian  mode,  and  the  prac- 
tice of  the  art  of  divination,  of  which  he  was  personally 
so  fond. 

Taking  the  Cyropsedeia  "  as  we  find  it — not  as  a 
history,  nor  as  a  true  picture  of  national  life  and 
manners,  nor  yet  as  a  romance  of  the  higher  kind,  like 
one  of  Walter  Scott's  novels,  but  as  a  fiction  com- 
posed with  the  object  of  setting  forth  views  on  education 
and  politics— we  must  allow  it  certain  merits.  Th6 
purity  and  elegance  of  its  style  are  universally  acknowL 
edged.  And  it  possesses,  as  Colonel  Mure  says,  aiv 
epic  unity  of  action,  within  which  numerous  episode^ 
are  artistically  introduced,  sj^me  of  them  quite  idylli^t 
in  character.  It  will  be  sufficient  for  our  purpose^ 
to  introduce  to  the  reader  a  few  specimens  of  these, 
as  there  would  be  little  use  or  pleasure  in  dwelling 
on  the  details  of  the  pseudo-historical  campaign  o\ 
Cyrus. 

Xenophon  commences  by  saying  that,  on  reflecting 
how  constantly  governments  of  all  kinds  are  over^ 
thrown,  he  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  mankind 


116 


XENOPHOK 


is  far  harder  to  govern  than  cattle  or  horses,  which 
are  easily  brought  into  obedience.  One  man,  however, 
had  possessed,  in*  a  pre-eminent  degree,  tlie  faculty  of 
ruling  over  his  fellow-men,  and  that  was  Cyrus  the 
Persian.  How  Cyrus  should  have  been  able  to  con- 
quer and  hold  in  subjection  so  large  a  portion  of  the 
world,  seemed  to  him  a  problem  worth  investigation. 
He  had  made  all  the  inquiries  he  could  about  the 
natural  qualities  and  education  which  had  produced  so 
remarkable  a  ruler,  and  would  now  proceed  to  state 
them,  as  follows: 

Both  the  historians  and  the  poets  of  Persia  agree  in 
describing  Cyrus  as  beautiful  in  person,  humane  in 
disposition,  and  so  keen  in  the  pursuit  both  of  knowl- 
edge and  of  glory  as  to  endure  all  labors  and  encounter 
all  dangers  for  their  sake.  The  education  which  he 
received  was  in  accordance  with  the  system  of  public 
instruction  of  his  country.  For  Persia,  unlike  other 
countries  (this  is  meant  as  a  hit  at  Athens,  and  at  the 
same  time  as  a  compliment  to  Sparta),  did  not  content 
herself  with  legislating  against  crime;  she  moulded 
the  minds  of  her  citizens  from  childhood,  by  a  public 
educational  system,  to  virtue.  This  system,  according 
to  Xenophon,  extended  only  to  the  higher  classes  of 
society.  Unlike  our  Committee  of  the  Privy  Council, 
the  Persian  educational  department  appears  to  have 
begun  from  the  top.  Only  those  w^ere  admitted  to  the 
privileges  of  the  state  education  who  were  above  the 
necessity  of  manual  labor. 

The  headquarters  of  public  instruction  in  Persia  are 
described  as  being  in  the  metropolis,  in  a  grand  square, 
where  the  king's  palace  and  the  public  offices  stood, 
and  from  which  all  merchandise  and  trades,  with  their 
'noise  and  vulgarity,"  were  banished.    The  square 


THE     EDUCATION  OF  CYRUSr'  117 


was  divided  into  four  parts,  which  were  severally 
assigned  to  the  boys,  youths,  men,  and  elders.  The 
first  three  classes  attended  regularly  from  early  morn- 
ing. The  elders  appear  to  have  joined  the  place  of 
instruction  at  cuch  times  as  suited  them,  chiefly  to 
furnish  an  example  to  their  juniors,  but,  when  on  the 
spot,  to  have  been  under  discipline  like  the  rest.  The 
youths,  till  married,  slept  round  the  public  offices,  in 
light  armor,  as  guards.  Each  of  the  four  classes  was 
under  the  control  of  presidents.  In  the  boys'  quarter 
the  time  appears  chiefly  to  have  been  occupied  in 
trying,  under  the  president,  all  cases  of  crime  and 
misdemeanor  which  had  arisen  among  the  boys  them- 
selves. Theft,  deceit,  calumny,  and  ingratitude  were 
thus  brought  to  punishment.  And  it  was  commonly 
said  that  the  Persian  boys  went  to  school  to  learn 
justice,  as  elsewhere  boys  go  to  school  to  learn  to  read. 
To  this  arrangement  the  trifling  objection  might  be 
made,  that  it  seems  to  imply  a*  very  abundant  and 
continuous  crop  of  naughtiness  among  the  boys  them- 
selves, else  the  trials  would  have  come  to  an  end,  and 
the  study  of  "  justice"  would  have  been  stopped. 
Xenophon,  however,  makes  no  remark  on  this  point, 
nor  does  he  mention  any  qther  subjects  of  study  as 
entering  into  the  curriculum  of  this  model  university. 
Indeed,  the  education  given  seems  very  much  to  have 
been  based  on  those  "  Aryan  principles"  of  instruction 
of  which  we  have  heard  of  late,  and  according  to 
which  book-learning  will  always  be  at  a  discount.  A 
Spartan  system  of  diet  appears  to  have  been  prescribed 
for  the  boys,  consisting  of  bread  and  cresses,  with 
water  to  drink.  The  boys  learned  shooting  with  the 
bow,  and  throwing  the  javelin;  and  at  the  age  of 
seventeen  they  passed  into  the  class  of  youths. 


118 


XENOPIION. 


From  seventeen  to  twenty-seven  the  chief  means  of 
cultivation  for  the  youths  appear  to  have  consisted  in 
patrol- duty  and  hunting..  On  the  advantages  of  hunt- 
ing as  a  preparation  and  training  for  war,  the  Persians, 
according  to  Xenophon,  laid  great  stress,  and  the 
youths  were  constantly  engaged  in  formal  hunting- 
parties  under  the  king.  They  bivouacked  in  the  open 
fields,  and  were  restricted  to  the  most  ascetic  fare; 
and  as  a  result  of  this  system  Xenophon  mentions 
that  every  Persian  avoids,  as  a  piece  of  bad  manners, 
either  spitting  or  blowing  his  nose — a  rule  which  it 
would  be  impossible  to  observe,  except  by  men  who 
had  practised  great  moderation  in  diet  and  exhausted 
the  moisture  of  their  bodies  by  exercise. 

Under  this  mode  of  instruction,  which  Xenophon 
does  not  further  describe,  Cyrus  was  brought  up  till 
twelve  years  old.  He  was  then  taken  to  see  his 
grandfather,  Astyages,  king  of  the  Medes.  By  his 
lively  prattle  he  pleased  Astyages,  and  was  invited  to 
remain  for  some  time  at  his  court.  Cyrus  begged  his 
mother  to  let  him  stay,  because,  he  said,  *'he  knew 
how  to  shoot  well  enough  already,  and  by  stopping 
among  the  Medes  he  should  have  a  better  oppor- 
tunity than  at  home  of  learning  to  ride."  His  mothers 
objection  was  that  he  would  forget  all  about  justice." 
But  Cyrus  said  that  he  quite  understood  justice,  and 
did  not  require  to  learn  it  any  more.  *'How  so?" 
said  Mandane.  **Why,"  said  Cyrus,  **I  have  often 
been  appointed  to  decide  cases,  and  I  only  made  one 
mistake.  That  was  in  the  case  of  the  boys  and  the 
coats.  There  was  a  big  boy  who  had  a  little  coat, 
quite  too  small  for  him.  And  there  was  a  little  boy 
with  a  large  coat,  very  loose  upon  him.  So  the  big 
boy  made  the  little  boy  exchange  coats  with  him,  and 


1 


THE  ''EDUCATION  OF  CTRUIS:'  119 


I  decided  that  he  was  right  in  doing  so,  and  that  eacli 
boy  should  keep  the  coat  that  best  fitted  him.  But 
the  master  beat  me  for  giving  this  decision,  for  he 
said  that  it  was  against  tlie  law  to  force  a  person  to 
give  up  his  property,  and  that  justice  consisted  in 
obeying  the  law.  So,  now  I  know  what  justice  is." 
This  story — which  has  probably  been  made  familiar 
to  most  of  our  readers  by  that  most  delightful  book 
for  childhood,  "  Sandford  and  Merton  " — shows  the 
sort  of  materials  from  which  Xenophon  constructed 
liis  work;  for  it  evidently  conveys  in  a  lively  form 
one  of  the  favorite  doctrines  of  Socrates  (see  above, 
page  104).  A  combination  of  the  teachings  of  Soc- 
rates with  the  institutions  of  Sparta  is  what  Xeno- 
phon wishes  to  recommend  under  the  shallow  disguise 
of  Persian  names  and  the  picture  of  a  foreign  court. 

The  educational  institutions  of  Sparta,  by  them- 
selves, Xenophon  would  probably  not  have  deemed 
adequate,  as  not  being  sufficiently  awakening  to  the 
intellect.  One  of  the  most  interesting  indications  on 
the  subject  of  education  which  he  gives  is  contained 
in  a  charming  description  of  the  boy  Cyrus,  of  whom 
he  says:  **He  was,  perhaps,  a  little  over-talkative, 
but  this  was  partly  from  education;  because  he  was 
obliged  by  his  master  to  give  a  reason  for  what  lie  did, 
and  to  require  reasons  from  others,  when  he  had  to 
give  his  opinion  in  judgment;  and  partly,  because, 
being  very  eager  for  knowledge,  he  was  always  putting 
questions  to  those  about  him  on  many  subjects,  to 
ascertain  how  such  and  such  things  were;  and  from 
being  of  a  quick  apprehension,  he  gave  very  ready 
answers  to  all  questions  that  were  asked  him ; — so  that 
from  all  these  circumstances  he  acquired  a  habit  of 
loquacity."   The  method  of  instruction  here  indicated, 


120 


XENOPHON. 


in  this  Smile  of  the  fourth  century  before  Christ,  is 
well  worth  attention.  It  implies  that  the  one  thing 
to  be  aimed  at  in  educating  boys  is,  to  arouse  their 
intelligence  into  activity.  This  forms  a  great  contrast 
to  the  spirit  of  modern  education,  which  aims  rather 
at  imparting  results  and  foregone  conclusions,  and 
which  many  people  are  now  beginning  to  complain  of, 
as  fostering  servility  of  mind  and  want  of  self-reliance. 
Cyrus,  according  to  the  account  of  Xenophon,  ctayed 
four  or  five  years  at  the  court  of  his  grandfather, 
during  which  time  he  was  not  at  all  spoilt  by  the 
indulgence  which  all  showed  him,  and  the  luxury 
which  he  saw  around  him.  He  developed  in  manly 
qualities,  became  a  bold  and  passionate  rider,  hunted 
the  animals  in  the  royal  park  (or  "paradise"),  and 
then  took  to  more  real  and  dangerous  sport  in  riding 
after  the  boar  and  other  animals  in  their  native 
wilds.  On  one  occasion  the  Assyrians  made  a  raid 
over  the  Median  borders,  and  Astyages  took  out 
troops  to  intercept  them.  The  youthful  Cyrus,  about 
fifteen  years  old,  went  with  him  in  a  new  suit  of 
armor,  and  at  an  opportune  moment  advised  that  a 
dash  should  be  made  at  the  enemy.  The  charge  was 
made,  the  boy  joined,  and  gradually  headed  it.  **As 
a  generous  dog,"  says  Xenophon,  "that  has  no  experi- 
ence, hurries  headlong  without  caution  upon  a  boar, 
so  Cyrus  pressed  forward,  minding  only  to  strike 
whomsoever  he  overtook,  and  heedless  of  anything 
else."  The  enemy  gave  way,  and  the  Median  cavalry 
had  complete  success.  Cyrus  was  almost  mad  with 
excitement;  and  while  the  rest  were  retiring,  he  did 
nothing  but  ride  round  by  himself,  and  gaze  upon 
those  who  had  fallen  in  the  action. 

Such  was  his  first  essay  in  arms.    He  was  shortly 


THE     EDUCATION  OF  CYIlUSr  121 


afterwards  recalled  by  his  father,  in  order  that  he 
might  complete  his  education.  On  returning  to  Persia, 
he  continued  another  year  in  the  class  of  the  boys. 
He  lived  cheerfully  on  the  same  rigorous  fare  as  the 
rest,  and  surpassed  them  all  in  exercises  and  in  dili- 
gence of  attention.  With  the  exception  of  some  advice 
from  his  father,  "which  has  very  much  the  appearance 
of  some  of  the  conversations  of  Socrates,  we  hear  no 
more,  after  this,  of  the  ''education  of  Cyrus."  He  had 
now  reached  man's  estate,  and  on  a  war  between  Media 
and  Assyria  breaking  out,  he  was  appointed  to  com- 
mand the  Persian  force  of  some  forty  thousand  men 
which  was  sent  to  assist  the  Medes.  He  immediately 
made  a  long  speech,  in  the  style  of  the  Xenophontic 
orations  in  the  "Anabasis,"  to  his  chosen  body-guard. 
After  this  follows  an  account  of  improvements  effected 
l>y  Cyrus  in  the  army — a  topic  which  gave  Xenophon 
a  good  opportunity  for  developing  many  of  his  favor- 
ite theories  on  military  organization.  Ambassadors 
arrived  from  **the  king  of  India"  to  learn  the  partic- 
ulars of  the  quarrel  between  Media  and  Assyria,  and 
Cyrus  sagaciously  conciliated  them  by  proposing  that 
the  king  of  India  should  be  made  arbitrator  in  the 
question. 

The  chief  of  Armenia,  a  country  subject  to  the 
Medes,  showed  sigus  of  revolt  at  this  juncture,  and 
Cyrus  took  his  army  for  the  purpose  of  reducing  him 
to  obedience.  Having  adroitly  surrounded  the  Armen- 
ian chief,  and  made  him  prisoner,  he  proceeded  to  try 
him  solemnly  on  the  charge  of  treason.  Xenophon 
uses  this  opportunity  to  introduce  a  conversational 
debate,  after  his  own  heart.  Tigranes,  son  of  the 
Armenian,  had  resided  in  Persia  and  had  often  been 
one  of  the  hunting  companions  of  Cyrus.  Cyrus 


122 


XENOrilOK 


recollected  thai  he  had  noticed  this  young  man  associ- 
ating with  a  philosophor,*  who  went  about  with  him 
and  instructed  him.  He  now  came  forward  and  re- 
quested to  be  heard  in  his  father's  defense.  Being 
readily  allowed  by  Cyrus  to  speak,  he  pleaded,  not 
that  his  father  had  been  innocent,  but  that  by  capti- 
vity and  fear  he  had  been  reformed,  and  that  it  would 
be  infinitely  better  policy  in  Cyrus  to  accept  him  as  a 
humbled  and  grateful  dependant,  instead  of  putting 
him  to  death.  The  arguments  of  Tigranes,  backed  by 
his  own  generous  impulses,  prevailed  with  Cyrus,  and 
in  the  handsomest  terms,  mixed  with  some  badinage, 
he  spared  the  life  of  the  Armenian  chief,  only  taking 
from  him  a  moderate  fine.  He  then  turned  to  Tigranes 
and  asked  what  had  become  of  his  friend  the  philoso- 
pher. "He  is  no  more,"  said  Tigranes,  "for  my  father 
here  put  him  to  death."  "  What  crime?"  asked  Cyrus, 
"did  he  find  him  committing?"  *\He  said  that  he 
corrupted  me,"  answered  Tigranes;  "and  yet,  Cyrus, 
so  noble  and  excellent  a  man  he  was,  that,  when  he 
was  going  to  die,  he  sent  for  me  and  told  me  not  to 
bear  my  father  the  least  ill-will  for  putting  him  to 
death,  because  he  was  doing  it  not  out  of  malice,  but 
out  of  ignorance,  and  whatever  faults  men  commit 
through  ignorance  ought  to  be  considered  involuntary." 
"Alas,  poor  man!"  said  Cyrus.  On  this  the  Armen- 
ian chief  interposed,  and  said,  "It  was  jealousy,  Cyrus: 
I  could  not  help  hating  that  man,  because  I  thought 
he  stole  my  son's  heart  away  from  me.  My  son  ad- 
mired him  more  than  he  did  myself."  "Well,"  said 
Cyrus,  "that  was  a  natural  weakness  of  yours,  and 


*  The  word  used  by  Xenophon  is  "sophist,"  which  means 
a  ni'ofesssional  teacher  of  philosophy  and  rhetoric. 


THE  ''EDUCATION  OF  CYllUSr  123 


your  son  must  now  forgive  you."  The  introduction  of 
this  incident,  in  obvious  allusion  to  the  treatment  of 
Socrates  by  the  fathers",  of  xVthens,  is  very  character- 
istic of  the  manner  of  the  Cyropsedeia." 

Perhaps  the  most  famous  episode  which  the  book 
contains  is  tlie  tale  of  Abradates  and  Panthea.  In  one 
of  Cyrus's  battles  with  the  Assyrians,  the  enemy's  camp 
was  stormed,  and  a  great  prize,  both  in  spoil  and 
prisoners,  was  taken.  Among  the  captives  was  Pan-* 
thea,  a  lady  of  Susa,  the  wife  of  Abradates,  an  Assyr- 
ian prince,  who  was  himself  absent,  having  been  sent 
on  a  mission  to  Bactria.  The  Median  officers,  in  dis- 
posing of  the  booty,  set  aside  this  lady  as  a  compli- 
mentary offering  to  Cyrus.  He,  learning  what  had 
been  arranged,  requested  Araspes,  for  whom  he  had 
had  a  sort  of  friendship  from  boyhood,  to  take  charge 
of  the  lady.  Araspes,  on  receiving  the  order,  asked, 
*'  But  have  you  seen  the  person  whom  you  wish  me  to 
toke  charge  of?"  Cyrus  replied  that  he  had  not.  On 
which  the  other  said,  have  seen  her,  though,  and 
Bhe  is  simply  the  most  beautiful  creature  that  was 
ever  born  of  mortals  throughout  the  whole  of  Asia. 
Even  when  she  was  sitting  on  the  ground,  covered 
with  a  veil,  there  was  something  about  her  that  dis- 
tinguished her  from  the  other  women.  But  when  she 
stood  up,  still  veiled  and  weeping,  she  was  not  only 
divinely  tall,  but  had  an  indescribable  grace  and  tragic 
nobleness  in  her  attitude.  To  comfort  her,  we  told  her 
that  no  doubt  her  husband  was  an  excellent  gentleman, 
but  that  she  would  now  belong  to  one  who  in  every 
respect  was  at  least  his  equcl,  for  that  if  there  was  a 
man  in  the  world  that  deserved  admiration,  it  was 
Cyrus.  On  hearing  this,  she  rent  her  veil  and  uttered  a 
lamentable  cry,  and  her  women  cried  out  with  her. 


134 


XENOPIIOK 


And  we  saw  the  greater  part  of  her  face  and  her  hands. 
There  never  was  such  a  woman.  You  must  go  and  see 
yourself." 

By  heavens!  I  shall  do  nothing  of  the  kind,  if  she  i? 
such  as  you  describe,"  said  Cyrus.  "  Why  not?"  asked 
the  young  man.  Why,  because  if  I  were  now  to  yield 
to  your  description,  and  go  and  see  her,  overwhelmed 
as  I  am  with  business,  I  daresay  the  sight  of  her  might 
^l^>make  me  wish  to  go  again,  and  thus  I  might  perhaps 
neglect  what  I  have  to  do,  in  order  to  sit  gazing  at  her." 
At  this  Araspes  laughed,  arid  asked  Cyrus  "if  he 
thought  that  the  beauty  of  any  human  being  could  put 
a  constraint  on  another,  so  as  to  force  him  to  act  differ- 
ently from  what  he  judged  best?  Love,"  he  argued, 
*'is  an  affair  of  the  will;  else,  why  does  not  a  brother 
fall  ih  love  with  his  sister,  or  a  father  with  his  daughter?" 
But  Cyrus  said,  "If  love  be  voluntary,  why  cannot  a 
person  cease  loving  when  he  wishes  to  do  so?  I  have 
seen  people,"  he  added,  weeping  from  love — made 
regular  slaves — giving  away  all  they  had,  wanting  to 
get  rid  of  their  love,  and  yet  held  as  if  by  an  iron  chain 
— victims  of  a  complete  fascination."  "  They  must  be 
poor  creatures,"  said  Arespes;  "any  man  who  is  worth 
anything  can  look  at  a  beautiful  woman  without  its 
making  any  difference  to  him.  At  least,  1  am  sure  I 
feel  this  about  our  beautiful  captive."  "  Have  a  care," 
said  Cyrus,  "  and  above  all  things  guard  this  lady  well, 
for  she  may  be  of  great  political  importance  to  us  some 
day  or  other." 

So  ended  the  conversation,  and  the  confident  boast- 
ings of  Araspes;  who,  partly  from  seeing  the  beauty  of 
his  prisoner,  and  partly  from  her  worth  and  goodness, 
and  partly  from  waiting  on  her  and  finding  her  not 
ungrateful,  and  partly  from  her  attentions  to  him  when 


THE  ''EDUCATION  OF  CYRUSr  125 


he  was  ill — from  all  these  causes  combined,  succumbed 
to  the  fate  which  he  had  derided,  and  became  hopelessly 
in  love  with  Panthea.  Which,  as  Xenophon  remarks, 
was  not  a  very  wonderful  occurrence  after  all.  When, 
however,  Arespes  at  last  ventured  to  intimate  to  her  the 
change  in  his  feelings  which  had  come  about,  and  the 
great  passion  by  which  he  was  now  possessed,  Panthea 
would  not  listen  to  him  for  a  moment.  She  protested 
her  unswerving  love  and  constancy  to  her  absent  hus- 
band; and  when  Araspes  in  despair  uttered  cruel 
threats,  she  sent  a  private  messenger  to  Cyrus  to  ac- 
quaint him  with  what  had  happened.  Cyrus,  on  hear- 
ing it,  burst  out  laughing  at  the  man  who  had  said 
that  he  was  above  the  power  of  love.  He  sent  Arta- 
bazus,  a  confidential  officer,  to  enjoin  Araspes  most 
strictly  to  do  no  violence  to  the  lady,  but  at  the  same 
time  to  say  that  he  had  carte  hlanclie  to  make  as  much 
impression  on  her  as,  by  fair  means,  he  could.  Arta- 
bazus,  however,  appears  not  to  have  given  this  exact 
message.  He  rated  Araspes  soundly  for  his  unfaithful- 
ness to  a  sacred  trust,  and  for  his  weakness,  impiety, 
and  wickedness;  so  that  Arespes  was  overwhelmed  with 
shame  and  confusion,  and  half-dead  with  fear  of  some 
great  punishment  at  the  hands  of  Cyrus.  Cyrus,  hear- 
ing of  his  distress,  sent  for  him  alone;  bid  him  be 
reassured;  told  him  that  he  might  easily  be  forgiven, 
since  both  gods  and  men  yielded  to  the  power  of  love; 
and  finally  took  the  blame  to  himself,  as  having  shut 
him  up  with  such  an  irresistible  creature.  Araspes, 
however,  still  made  moan,  that  all  men  would  point  at 
him,  and  that  even  his  friends  advised  him  to  keep  out 
of  the  way  of  Cyrus,  as  likely  to  do  him  harm.  "  This  is 
most  opportune,"  said  Cyrus,  **for  now  you  will  be 
just  the  man  for  me  to  send  as  a  spy  into  Lydia.  You 


136 


XENOPUON. 


can  pretend  to  fly  from  me  and  go  over  to  the  enemy, 
and  you  will  get  their  confidence,  and  be  able  to  give  us 
the  most  valuable  information."  This  arrangement  was 
speedily  made,  and  the  love-stricken  Araspes  departed 
on  his  mission,  and  disappeared  from  the  scene. 

The  beautiful  Panthea  now  suggested  that  she 
should  send  for  her  husband,  who,  in  gratitude  for  the 
treatment  she  had  received,  would  be  certain  to  desert 
his  Assyrian  master,  and  come  over  to  Cyrus.-  She  was 
allowed  to  send;  and  Arbrada^tes,  having  recognized 
his  wife's  tokens,  and  heard  how  matters  stood, 
marched  joyfully  to  the  camp  of  Cyrus,  bringing  with 
him  about  a  thousand  horse.  Having  declared  who  he 
was,  he  was  admitted  within  the  lines,  and  embraced  his 
wife  tenderly  after  so  long  a  separation.  He  then 
waited  upon  Cyrus,  and  extending  his  right  hand,  said, 
*'In  return  for  the  benefits  that  you  have  bestowed  on 
us,  Cyrus,  I  can  say  nothing  more  than  that  I  give  my- 
self to  you,  as  a  friend,  a  servant,  and  an  ally."  Cyrus 
said,  I  accept  your  kindness,  and  take  leave  of  you 
for  the  present,  that  you  may  go  to  supper  with  your 
wife;  at  some  other  time  I  shall  hope  to  receive  you  in 
my  tent,  together  with  your  friends  and  mine." 

Not  long  after  this  it  came  about  that  Cyrus  had  to 
fight  a  great  battle  against  the  enemy,  who  were  now 
an  army  of  all  nations  under  the  command  of  Croesus, 
king  of  Lydia.  While  the  disposition  of  the  forces  w^as 
being  made,  Abradates,  prince  of  Susa,  obtained,  partly 
by  entreaty  and  partly  by  lot,  a  conspicuous  position  in 
the  front  line  of  Cyrus's  army.  He  made  a  splendid 
figure,  for  he  had  a  chariot  with  four  poles,  drawn  by 
eight  horses;  and  his  wife  Panthea  had  arrayed  him  in 
a  golden  helmet  and  golden  arm  pieces  which  she  had 
procured,  and  a  purple  robe  reaching  to  his  feet,  which 


THE  ''EDUCATION  OF  CTIlUSr  127 


she  had  made.  When  he  was  preparing  to  mount  his 
chariot,  she  bade  him  farewell,  saying,  ''You  know, 
Abrad^tes,  that  if  ever  a  woman  loved  her  husband 
better  than  her  own  soul,  I  am  such  a  one.  And  yet, 
loving  you  as  I  do,  I  love  honor  more,  and  would 
rather  be  buried  with  you,  in  your  glory,  than  live 
with  you  if  either  of  us  were  dishonored.  You  will 
remember  the  debt  of  gratitude  which  we  owe  to 
Cyrus,  and  in  this  battle  you  will  discharge  it." 
Abradates  laid  his  hand  gently  on  her  head,  and,  lift- 
ing his  eyes  to  heaven,  exclaimed,  **May  I  prove 
worthy  of  the  love  of  Panthea,  and  of  the  friendship  of 
Cyrus!"  He  then  mounted,  and  Panthea,  as  a  last 
adieu,  kissed  the  chariot,  and  was  borne  off  by  her 
attendants  to  her  tent,  and  the  line  began  to  move 
against  the  enemy. 

There  was  a  mighty  battle  against  great  odds,  for  the 
army  of  Croesus  quite  outflanked  that  of  Cyrus,  and 
enclosed  it,  '*  as  a  large  brick  might  enclose  a  smaller 
one,"  on  all  sides  but  the  rear.  But  the  gallantry  of 
the  smaller  force  prevailed,  and  none  on  that  day  made 
a  fiercer  charge  than  Abradates,  of  Susa,  who,  being 
posted  against  the  Egyptians,  overwhelmed  and  crushed 
them  in  his  weighty  chariot,  armed  with  scythes.  But 
in  the  furious  melee  that  ensued,  the  prince  himself, 
pursuing  his  victorious  course,  was  thrown  from  his 
chariot,  and,  fighting  like  a  brave  man  on  foot,  was  cut 
down  and  killed. 

The^ext  day  after  the  battle  had  been  won,  Cyrus 
asked,  ''Where  was  Abradates,  that  he  did  not  come 
to  see  him?"  They  said  that  he  was  no  longer  alive, 
and  that  his  wife  had  carried  his  body  to  a  spot  near 
the  river  Pactolus,  where  her  eunuchs  were  digging  a 
grave  for  him,  while  she  sat  on  the  ground  with  the 


128 


XENOrilOK 


dead  man's  head  upon  her  knees.  On  learning  this, 
Cyrus  struck  his  thigh,  and  leaping  upon  his  horse, 
rode,  with  an  escort,  to  the  scene  of  affliction.  When 
he  reached  the  spot,  he  approached  the  corpse,  and 
shedding  tears,  he  said,  "Ah!  brave  and  faithful 
soul,  hast  thou  then  left  us  for  ever?"  and  he  took 
hold  of  the  right  hand,  but  the  hand  came  away,  for 
the  wrist  had  been  cut  through  by  an  Egyptian.  On 
this  Panthea  shrieked,  and  taking  the  hand  kissed  and 
replaced  it,  and  said,  "All  his  body  is  like  this,  Cyrus, 
and  it  is  my  doing,  for,  not  thinking  of  the  result,  I 
exhorted  him  not  to  spare  himself  for  your  sake.  And 
now  he  is  dead,  and  I  who  encouraged  him  sit  here 
alive."  After  weeping  for  some  time  in  silence,  Cyrus 
said,  "He  has  died  a  noble  death,  and  numbers  of  men 
shall  raise  a  monument  to  him,  which  shall  not  be  un- 
worthy of  him  or  of  us,  and  sacrifices  shall  be  per- 
formed in  honor  of  his  bravery.  And  for  you,  every 
care  shall  be  taken  of  you;  and  when  you  tell  me  where 
you  wish  to  be  sent,  it  shall  be  done."  Panthea  re- 
plied, "You  shall  soon  know,  Cyrus,  to  whom  I  wish 
to  go."  Cyrus  now  departed,  sorrowing.  And  Pan- 
thea, having  ordered  her  eunuchs  to  retire,  called  her 
nurse,  and  bade  her,  when  she  was  dead,  to  wrap  her 
and  her  husband  in  one  mantle.  She  then  produced  a 
sword,  which  she  had  provided,  and  stabbed  herself, 
and  the  nurse,  wailing,  covered  them  both  as  Panthea 
had  directed,  and  three  of  the  faithful  eunuchs  slew 
themselves  on  the  bodies  of  their  master  and  mft tress. 
Cyrus,  when  he  heard  of  it,  lamented  exceedingly,  and 
caused  a  lofty  monument  to  be  raised  over  the  noble 
and  unfortunate  pair. 

This  narrative,  which  we  have  given  as  nearly  as 
possible  in  the  words  of  Xenophon,  is  the  first  extant 


THE  ''EDUCATION  OF  CYIiUS.'*  129 


instance  of  a  prose  love-story  in  European  literature. 
It  was  much  admired  by  the  ancients,  and  probably 
gave  rise  to  many  imitations  of  itself.  Plutarch,  in 
his  essay  to  prove  "that  the  doctrines  of  Epicurus  do 
not  secure  even  pleasure  in  living,"  asks  (p.  1093) 
**  whether  the  actual  enjoyments  of  love  could  be 
superior  to  the  imaginative  pleasures  felt  in  reading 
the  tale  of  Panthea  as  related  by  Xenophon,  or  the 
tale  of  Timoclea  as  told  by  Aristobulus,  or  of  Thebe 
by  Theopompus?"  These  two  last  writers  were  histor- 
ians of  the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great,  who  appear 
to  have  introduced  love  episodes  into  their  histories, 
which  are  now  lost.  As  in  old  Homer,  and  as  in  India 
at  the  present  day,  the  conception  of  love  in  the  story 
of  Panthea  is  a  conception  of  post-nuptial,  and  not  ante- 
nuptial, passion.  The  action  commences,  so  to  speak, 
at  a  point  after  the  third  volume  of  a  modern  novel 
would  have  concluded.  As  such,  and  on  account  of  its 
simplicity,  the  tragical  story  of  Abradates  and  Panthea 
may  be  despised  by  the  English  reader,  especially  if  un- 
married. But  taking  the  ancient  Greeks  as  they  are,  we 
may  find  some  interest  in  observing  the  points  in  which 
they  differ  from  ourselves. 

After  his  victory  over  Croesus,  and  after  taking  the 
city  of  Sardis,  Cyrus  proceeded  to  the  conquest  of 
Babylon.  Xenophon,  like  the  other  authorities,  repre- 
sents him  as  effecting  this  by  diverting  the  course 
of  the  Euphrates,  and  entering  the  city  by  the  river- 
bed at  midnight,  while  all  the  Babylonians  were  en- 
gaged in  a  revel.  The  whole  account  is  interspersed 
with  a  record  of  the  sagacious  provisions  and  wise 
exhortations  of  Cyrus,  which  takes  off  from  its  live- 
liness, and  make  the  narrative  unworthy  of  the  great- 
ness of  the  event.    In  vividness  and  reality  this 


130 


XENOPIION. 


crowning  act  in  the  creation  of  the  Persian  empire 
falls  far  short  of  those  smaller  incidents  in  which 
Xenophon  had  himself  taken  part,  and  which  he  de- 
-  scribes  in  the  graphic  pages  of  the  ''Anabasis.'* 

Henceforth  the  measures  of  Cyrus  for  the  consolida- 
tion of  his  rule  over  the  conquered  nations,  and  his 
maxims  of  government,  are  recorded.  Some  of  these 
may  be  mentioned.  His  first  care  was  to  provide  at- 
tached and  faithful  attendants  about  his  own  person. 
In  selecting  these,  the  principle  he  went  upon  was,  to 
choose  men  who  had  fewest  family  ties,  who  belonged 
to  the  most  despised  and  isolated  class,  and  who  could 
be  most  absolutely  bound  by  obligations  of  favor  and 
gratitude.    And  of  these  he  formed  his  bureaucracy. 

Next,  Cyrus  turned  his  attention  to  the  civil  business 
of  the  empire,  which  he  arranged  by  a  system  of  bu- 
reaux and  departments,  so  as  to  keep  a  centralized  con- 
trol of  all  the  ramifications  of  state  affairs.  "He  was 
thus  enabled,  by  speaking  with  a  few  persons  only,  to 
keep  every  department  of  business  under  superintend- 
ence; and  he  had  consequently  more  leisure  than  an- 
other man  who  had  charge  but  of  a  single  house  or  a 
single  ship."  Having  by  orderly  arrangement  secured 
a  certain  amount  of  leisure  both  for  himself  and  others, 
he  proceeded  to  employ  this  in  molding  the  characters 
of  the  upper  ranks  of  society.  He  encouraged,  by 
many  artifices,  all  who  were  able  to  subsist  by  the  la- 
bor of  other  men"  to  be  in  constant  attendance  at  his 
court,  and  he  set  himself  to  be  *'  a  living  law"  and  ex- 
ample of  life  and  manners  to  these.  Each  day  had  its 
appointed  religious  services,  under  the  direction  of  the 
Magi,  and  commenced  with  a  hymn  to  the  gods,  which 
was  sung  at  daybreak.  Greek  moderation  and  simplic- 
ity characterized  the  style  of  living  in  the  palace. 


THE  ''EDUCATION  OF  VTRUS:'  131 


Everything  unseemly  was  carefully  avoided.  A  strict 
code  of  etiquette  and  politeness  was  introduced,  and 
differences  of  rank  were  marked  with  appropriate  ob- 
servances. No  outbreak  of  anger  or  rude  laughter  was 
ever  to  be  heard.  .  "You  would  have  thought  that  the 
whole  court  lived  entirely  for  the  beautiful." 

As  a  preparation  for  war  (here  Xenophon  introduces 
one  of  his  favorite  ideas,  and  not  a  bad  one),  Cyrus 
used  to  take  out  all  the  gentlemen  of  his  court  to  hunt 
wild  animals  on  horseback  with  spears.  Thus  a  great 
emulation  arose  in  riding  and  skill  t)f  various  kinds. 
And  all  became  inured  to  hardy  habits  and  long  fasts 
in  the  open  air;  and  Cyrus  himself  outvied  them  all, 
and  showed  them  his  opinion,  '*that  no  man  has  any 
business  with  government  who  is  not  himself  better 
than  those  whom  he  governs."  But  while  setting  tjiis 
example,  and  taking  all  this  trouble  for  the  education 
of  the  upper  classes,  with  respect  to  the  lower  ranks  of 
society  he  took  a  very  different  course.  He  studiously 
avoided  inciting  them  to  any  liberal  pursuit,  and  even 
prevented  them  as  far  as  possible  from  exercising  the 
virtues  of  self-denial.  For  when  a  crowd  of  the  com- 
mon people  had  to  act  as  beaters  in  the  mountains  and 
forests,  he  had  provisions  carried  for  themy  but  none 
for  the  nobles.  So  that  the  lower  orders,  not  under- 
standing his  aims,  and  being  well  cared  for,  called 
him  their  father,  for  arranging  that  they  should  always 
continue  slaves."  This  Machiavelian  policy,  which  of 
course  is  to  be  considered  as  an  idea  of  Xenophon's,* 
and  not  as  historical,  is  in  accordance  with  the  ancient 
Greek  notions  that  society  must  be  based  on  slavery. 
It  is  also  akin  with  the  Spartan  principle  that  the  gov- 
ernment must  be  for  the  interests  of  a  ruling  caste, 
while  an  outlying  caste  (like  the  Helots)  is  to  be  treated 


133 


XENOPHON. 


as  a  mere  instrument,  with  no  rights  of  its  own,  in  tlie 
state  arrangements. 

The  policy  of  Cyrus  in  governing dependencies" 
(for  such  was  Babylon  when  first  conquered)  is  repre- 
sented as  consisting  in  constant  conciliation  of  the  up- 
per classes,  who  were  to  be  drawn  closely  round  the 
monarch;  while  all  the  rest  were  to  be  equitably  treated, 
but  held  at  a  distance.  Thus  Xenophon  describes  him 
as  spending  infinite  trouble  and  tact  on  personal  atten- 
tions to  the  nobles,  who  were  by  these  means  to.be  cap- 
tivated, and  turned  more  and  more  into  friends  of 
the  king.  All  this  is  interesting,  and  might  be  com- 
pared, or  contrasted,  as  the  case  may  be,  with  the  ac- 
tion of  England  (too  often  without  a  theory)  in  relation 
to  its  dependencies,  such  as  Ireland  of  old  and  India  in 
later  times. 

After  the  settlement  of  Babylon  came  the  division  of 
the  whole  Persian  empire  into  satrapies,  which  is  better 
related  by  Herodotus.  And  then  there  were  various 
journeys  of  Cyrus  to  revisit  his  home,  where  his  father 
and  mother  were  now  dead.  From  his  uncle  Cyaxares, 
whom  Cyrus  had  made  the  head  of  the  greatest  empire 
in  the  world,  he  received  the  hand  of  a  daughter  in 
marriage,  with  the  throne  of  Media  for  her  dower. 

At  last,  when  he  was  on  one  of  his  vists  to  Persia, 
being  now  advanced  in  years,  though  apparently  in 
perfect  health — after  performing  some  sacrifices  and 
leading  in  person  a  national  dance — Cyrus  was  in  the 
flight  warned  by  a  vision  of  his  approaching  end.  A 
being  of  superhuman  dignity  seemed  to  come  to  him, 
and  to  say,  ''Cyrus,  prepare  thyself,  for  thou  art  now 
going  to  the  gods."  After  this  vision  he  awoke,  and, 
taking  victims,  went  to  the  summit  of  a  mountain, 
where  he  sacrificed  to  Jupiter,  the  sun,  and  the  rest  of 


THE  ''EDUCATION  OF  CYRUSr  133 


the  gods,  thanking  them  for  their  care  of  him  during 
his  long  and  prosperous  life,  and  for  all  the  omens  and 
signs  th^  had  sent  him  as  indications  of  what  he 
ought  to  do;  and  praying  for  a  blessing  on  his  family, 
his  friends,  and  his  country.  He  then  returned  home, 
and  lay  down  to  rest.  Feeling  no  inclination  to  eat, 
he  took  nothing  for  three  days,  after  which  he  called 
ronnd  him  his  sons  and  the  chief  men  of  Persia,  and 
addressed  them.  He  told  them  that  he  knew  his 
end  was  at  hand,  and  that  when  he  was  gone  they 
were  to  think  of  him  as  one  who  had  lived  a  happy 
life.  **I  have  realized,"  said  he,  **all  that  is  most 
highly  prized  in  the  successive  ages  of  life — as  a 
child  in  childhood,  as  a  young  man  in  youth,  as  a 
man  in  maturity.  My  strength  has  seemed  to  in- 
crease with  the  advance  of  time;  I  have  failed  in 
nothing  that  I  undertook.  I  have  exalted  my  friends 
and  humbled  my  enemies,  and  have  brought  my 
country  from  obscuritj^  to  the  summit  of  glory.  I 
have  kept  hitherto  from  anything  like  boasting, 
knowing  that  a  reverse  might  come;  but  now  that 
the  end  has  arrived,  I  may  safely  claim  to  be  called  for- 
tunate." 

He  then  turned  to  his  sons,  and  having  assigned  the 
succession  to  the  throne  to  one,  and  an  immense  satrapy 
to  another,  he  exhorted  them  to  live  in  concord.  And 
he  based  this  exhortation  not  only  on  grounds  of 
gatural  affection  and  mutual  interest,  but  also  on  a  re- 
gard to  what  would  be  pleasing  to  his.  own  disembodied 
spirit.    He  said.*   ''You  cannot  surely  believe  that 


*  The  arguments  here  given  in  favor  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  are  exactly  quoted  by  Cicero  at  the  end  of  his  dialogue 
"  On  Old  Age." 


134 


XENOFIIOK 


■when  I  have  ended  this  mortal  life  I  shall  cease  to  exist. 
Even  in  lifetime  you  have  never  seen  my  soul ;  you  have 
only  inferred  its  existence.  And  there  are  gipunds  for 
inferring  the  continuance  of  the  soul  after  death.  Have 
we  not  seen  what  a  power  is  exercised  by  the  souls  of 
murdered  men — how  they  send  avenging  furies  to  pun- 
ish their  murderers?  It  is  only  to  this  belief  in  the 
power  of  the  soul  after  death  that  the  custom  of  paying 
honor  to  the  dead  is  due;  and  the  belief  is  reasonable, 
for  the  soul,  and  not  the  body,  is  the  principle  of  life. 
When  soul  and  body  are  separated,  it  is  natural  to 
think  that  the  soul  will  live.  And  the  soul,  too,  is  the 
principle  of  intelligence.  When  severed  from  the 
senseless  body,  it  will  surely  not  lose  its  intelligence, 
but  only  become  more  pure  and  bright;  just  as  in  sleep, 
when  the  soul  is  most  independent  of  the  body,  it  seems 
to  gain  the  power,  by  prophetic  dreams,  of  seeing  into 
futurity.  Do  then,  what  I  advise,  from  a  regard  to  my 
immortal  spirit;  but  if  I  be  mistaken  in  thinking  it  so, 
then  act  out  of  regard  for  the  eternal  gods  who  maintain 
the  order  of  the  universe,  and  watch  over  piety  and 
justice.  Respect,  too.  Humanity,  in  its  perpetual  suc- 
cession, and  act  so  as  to  be  approved  by  all  posterity. 
When  I  am  dead,  do  not  enshrine  my  body  in  gold  or 
silver,  but  restore  it  to  the  earth,*  for  what  can  be  better 
than  to  be  mixed  up  and  incorporated  with  the  benefi- 
cent source  of  all  that  is  good  for  men?  While  life, 
which  still  lingers  in  ^me, remains, you  may  come  near  and 


*  This  is  quite  at  variance  with  the  Persian  customs,  as  related 
by  Herodotus.  Bodies  could  neither  be  buried  nor  burnt,  because 
both  the  earth  and  fire  were  too  sacred  for  contamination.  They 
were  therefore  exposed  to  be  consumed  by  vultures — a  practice 
still  universally  maintained  by  the  Parsees,  the  modern  repr&i 
Sentatives  of  the  old  Persian  relijrion. 


XENOPEON'S  MINOR  WORKS,  135 


touch  my  hand,  and  look  upon  my  face ;  but  when  I 
have  covered  my  head  for  death,  I  request  that  no  man 
may  any  more  look  upon  my  body.  But  summon  all 
the  Persians  and  the  allies  to  my  tomb,  to  rejoice  with 
me  that  I  shall  now  be  in  safety,  and  cannot  suffer  evil 
any  more,  whether  I  shall  have  gone  to  God,  or  whether 
I  shall  have  ceased  to  exist.  Distribute  gifts  among  all 
who  come.  And  remember  this  my  last  word  of  advice : 
*  By  doing  good  to  your  friends,  you  will  gain  the  power 
of  punishing  your  enemies.'  Farewell,  dear  children; 
say  farewell  to  your  mother  from  me :  all  my  friends, 
absent  as  well  as  present,  farewell."  Having  said  this, 
and  taken  every  one  by  the  right  hand,  he  covered  his 
face,  and  expired. 


CHAPTER  VIL 

xenophon's  minor  works. 

Xenophon,  after  the  completion  of  his  campaigns, 
had,  as  we  have  seen  above,*  a  long  tranquil  life,  prob- 
ably from  his  fortieth  till  nearly  his  ninetieth  year, 
devoted  to  literature,  during  which  he  not  only  collected 
materials  f  or  his  * '  Hellenica  "  (the  contemporary  history 
of  Greece),  but  also  wrote  his  "  Anabasis,"  his  ''Recol- 
lections of  Socrates,"  his  Education  of  Cyrus,"  and 
several  minor  works  above  enumerated,  f  These  opus- 
cula,  composed  from  time  to  time,  as  the  fancy  took 
him,  show  Xenophon  as  the  earliest  of  essay-writers. 
His  subjects  were  varied  enough,  and  this  circumstance 
gives  an  interest  to  his  works;  but  yet  we  find  that  his 


*  See  page  74. 


t  See  page  78, 


136 


XENOPHOK 


ideas  were  somewhat  limited.  He  constantly  reproduces 
under  different  forms  the  same  ideal  type  of  human  life 
and  character.  And  this  ideal  type  is  nothing  transcen- 
dental or  impossible :  it  is  thoroughly  healthy,  but  it  has 
a  certain  suggestion  of  mediocrity. 

Xenophon  had  a  great  capacity  for  friendship,  and  a 
tendency  to  what  in  modern  times  has  been  called  hero- 
worship."  During  his  earlier  life  he  had,  at  successive 
periods,  two  great  objects  for  these  sentiments — Socrates 
and  Agesilaus,  a  philosopher  and  a  king.  In  his  Eu- 
logy of  Agesilaus"  he  pays  a  tribute  to  the  king,  anala- 
gous  to  that  which,  in  the  Recollections  of  Socrates," 
he  paid  to  the  philosopher.  He  does  not  write  the  life 
of  Agesilaus,  but  merely  gives  a  brief  summary  of  some 
of  his  chief  public  performances  in  war  and  diplomacy, 
and  then  dilates  upon  his  virtues.  Agesilaus — who, 
according  to  Plutarch,  was  a  short,  rather  mean-looking 
man,  lame  of  one  foot — appears  to  have  produced  a 
great  impression  upon  Xenophon.  But  Xenophon  had 
not  the  dramatic  faculty  requisite  for  portrait-painting 
in  words.  The  catologue  of  qualities  assigned  to  his 
hero  does  not  bring  a  living  personality  before  us,  but 
rather  reads  like  the  list  of  particulars  in  the  Linnsean 
classification  of  a  plant.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  distinguish 
the  historical  Agesilaus  of^enophon,  drawn  from  the 
life, from  the  psuedo-historical  Cyrus,  drawn  from  fancy. 
Xenophon  in  this  matter  appears  almost  like  a  school- 
boy who  can  only  draw  one  face,  which  he  accordingly 
repeats  for  ever. 

Agesilaus  was,  of  course,  according  to  Xenophon, 
a  great  disciplinarian,  and  very  scrupulous  in  all  re- 
ligious observances.  '*A  spectator  would  have  been 
cheered  at  seeing  Agesilaus  first,  and  after  him  the 
rest  of  the  soldiers,  crowned  with  chaplets  whenever 


XENOPUON'S  MINOR  WORKS.  137 


they  returned  from  the  place  of  exercise,  and  dedicat- 
ing  their  chaplets  to  Diana;  for  how  can  it  be  other- 
wise than  that  a  cause  should  be  hopeful,  when  its 
supporters  reverence  the  gods,  practise  warlike  exer- 
cises, and  observe  obedience  to  their  commanders?'* 
Item,  he  was  very  trustworthy,  and  paid  such  respect 
to  what  was  divine,  that  even  his  enemies  considered 
his  oaths  and  compacts  more  to  be  relied  on  than 
friendship  among  themselves."  Item,  he  was  extremely 
moderate  and  self-controlled  in  eating,  drinking,  sleep, 
and  all  the  pleasures  of  sense.  He  acted  on  the  princi- 
ple that  it  becomes  a  prince  to  surpass  private  persons> 
not  in  effeminacy,  but  in  endurance."  Item,  he  was 
very  brave  in  war,  and  very  successful  as  a  general; 
very  patriotic  and  subordinate  to  the  laws  of  his  coun- 
try; very  affable  and  unostentatious  as  king;  living 
plainly,  being  accessible  to  all,  and  as  unlike  as  possible 
to  the  kings  of  Persia.  He  attained  a  great  age  in  health 
and  vigor,  and  "was  borne  to  his  eternal  home"  hon- 
ored and  lamented  by  all.  Such  is  the  character  of 
Agesilaus.  as  given  by  Xenophon  in  eleven  chapters. 
It  is  a  dull  picture,  conveying  the  notion  rather  of  re- 
spectability than  of  greatness.  Those  who  wish  to  see 
a  portrait  of  the  same  man  in  brighter  colors  may  refer 
to  Plutarch's  Lives." 

The  *'Hiero,"  another  of  Xenophon's  minor  works, 
is  a  neat  little  essay  in  the  form  of  a  dialogue,  on  the 
advantages,  or  otherwise,  in  the  lot  of  a  tyrant," — that 
is,  an  absolute  monarch,  whose  rule  has  been  founded 
on  the  overthrow  of  constitutional  government.  The 
history  of  the  Second  Empire  in  France  tends  to  give  a 
particular  interest  to  this  discussion,  which  Xenophon 
attributes  to  the  courtly  Greek  poet  Simonides  and 
Hiero  L,  the  tyrant  of  Syracuse.    Many  would  like 


138 


XEmPIIOK 


to  have  had  the  opportunity  of  questioning  Louis 
Napoleon  at  the  period  of  his  greatest  prosperity  as  to 
his  enjoyment,  or  otherwise,  of  the  power  reached  by 
the  coup  d'etat oi  the  2d  December;  and  such  was  the 
kind  of  question  supposed  to  be  addressed  to  King 
Hiero  by  Simonides.  Hiero's  answer  is  of  the  most 
gloomy  description.  He  says  that  it  is  a  mere  popular 
delusion  to  fancy  that  tyrants  are  to  be  envied.  They 
have  not  half  the  pleasure,  and  they  suffer  twice  the 
pains,  that  private  individuals  do.  Their  enjoymente 
are  dulled  by  satiety — they  cannot  travel,  they  cannot 
realize  the  full  pleasures  of  love  because  they  never 
can  be  sure  that  their  affection  is  returned.  Indeed, 
there  are  none  from  v/hom  conspiracies  against  kings 
proceed  more  frequently  than  from  those  who  have 
affected  to  love  them  with  the  greatest  sincerity." 
**If  peace  is  thought  to  be  a  great  good  to  mankind, 
tyrants  have  the  least  participation  of  it;  if  war  is 
deemed  a  great  evils,  kings  have  the  greatest  share  of  it. 
Private  individuals,  if  they  go  to  make  war  in  an  ene- 
my's country,  still  find,  as  soon  as  they  return  home, 
that  there  is  safety  for  them  there ;  but  tyrants,  when 
they  come  to  their  capitals,  are  conscious  that  they  are 
then  in  the  midst  of  the  greatest  number  of  enemies.'* 
*'They  distinguish,  no  less  than  private  persons,  which 
of  their  subjects  are  wise  and  just,  and  of  a  constitution- 
al spirit;  but,  instead  of  regarding  such  characters  with 
admiration,  they  look  upon  them  with  dread.  They  fear 
men  of  courage,  lest  they  should  make  some  bold  at- 
tempt in  favor  of  liberty;  men  of  abilities,  lest  they 
should  engage  in  some  conspiracy ;  men  of  virtue,  lest 
the  multitude  should  desire  to  be  governed  by  them. 
But  when,  from  apprehension,  they  have  removed  such 
characters  out  of  the  way,  what  others  are  left  them  to 


XENOPIION'S  MINOR  WORKS,  139 


employ  in  their  service  except  the  dishonest,  and  licen- 
tious, and  servile?"  So  far  from  a  tyrant  being  happier 
than  other  men,  his  state  of  mind  may  be  summed  up 
by  saying  that  **  he  passes  day  and  night  as  if  he  were 
condemned  by  the  whole  human  race  to  die  for  his 
usurpation." 

On  hearing  this  statement,  Simonides  asks,  "Why, 
if  such  be  all  that  your  position  of  royalty  has  to  give, 
do  you  not  voluntarily  abdicate?"  But  Hiero  answers 
that  this  very  thing  is  one  of  the  worst  features  of 
usurped  royalty — that  it  is  impossible  to  set  cue's  self 
free  from  it.  *'For  how  can  any  tyrant  command 
sufficient  resources  to  make  restitution  of  property  to 
those  from  whom  he  has  taken  it,  or  how  can  he  make 
atonement  to  these  whom  he  has  cast  into  prison,  or 
for  those  whom  he  has  unjustly  put  to  death?  In 
short,  a  tyrant  can  have  no  comfort  either  in  keeping 
his  throne  or  resigning  it;  so  the  only  thing  left  for  him 
to  do  is — to  hang  himself."  Simonides,  however,  offers 
consolation  by  observing  that  the  dissatisfaction  felt  by 
Hiero  proceeds  from  the  amiability  of  his  disposition, 
which  leads  him  to  desire  the  love  of  mankind.  He  as- 
sures him  that  this  may  still  be  obtained  by  a  right  use 
of  the  advantages  of  his  position — by  showing  gracious- 
ness  and  affability;  by  developing  the  resources  of  the 
state,  and  so  benefiting  all;  by  using  his  mercenary  sol- 
diers as  police  for  the  repression  of  crime;  by  spending 
his  private  means  on  public  objects;  and  that  thus,  by 
enacting  the  part  of  a  benevolent  tyrant,  he  will  be  for- 
given for  being  a  tyrant  at  all,  and  will  attair.  the  mOvSt 
desirable  end,  of  being  happy  without  being  envied; — all 
of  which  is  pleasing  theory,  but  perhaps  hardly  borne  out 
by  history. 

Several  of  Xenophon's  tracts  are  on  special  practical 


140 


XENOPIIOK 


subjects,  and  of  these  one  of  the  most  interesting  is  his 
Essay  on  the  Revenues  of  Athens,"  in  which  he  gives 
advice  for  improving  the  financial  position  of  his  coun- 
try. During  the  flourishing  times  of  the  Republic,  the 
great  body  of  Athenian  citizens  had  been  trained  to 
habits  of  idleness.  The  state  revenues  were  almost  en- 
tirely draw^n  from  the  contributions  of  tributary  allies, 
and  were  largely  expended  in  payments  to  the  citizens 
for  sitting  as  jurymen  (see  above,  page  88),  and  per- 
forming other  unproductive  functions,  and  in  the  pro- 
vision of  theatrical  exhibitions  and  other  pageants. 

Xenophon  observes  that  this  system  was  based  on  a 
certain  amount  of  injustice  towards  the  allies,  from 
whom  tribute  was  exacted,  and  he  proceeds  to  otfer 
suggestions  for  rendering  Athens  more  dependent  on 
herself  for  the  means  of  meeting  state  charges.  These 
suggestions  have  not  very  well  borne  the  test  of 
modern  criticism.  They  are  evidently  the  production 
of  an  amateur  financier,  and  not  of  a  practical  states- 
man. One  thing  particularly  strikes  the  modern 
reader,  and  that  is  —  the  smallness  of  the  sums  in 
which  Xenophon  thinks.  He  speaks  of  Attica  (which, 
though  possessing  a  silver  mine  and  marble  quarries, 
was  still  like  a  small  county,  with  a  thin  soil)  as 
''qualified  by  nature  to  afford  very  large  revenues." 
And  he  seems  to  think  it  an  immense  point  to  add 
£10,000  or  £20,000  to  the  revenues  of  the  state. 

One  of  the  ways  by  which  he  proposes  to  do  this  is 
to  increase  the  number  of  foreigners  settling  at  Athens, 
and  paying  a  yearly  tax  of  twelve  drachmae  (nine  shil- 
lings) a  head.  In  Xenophon's  time  the  citizens  of 
Athens,  exclusive  of  slaves,  appear  to  have  amounted 
to  only  about  20,000.  Therefore  in  order  to  obtain 
£10,0tK)  of  additional  revenue  by  means  of  the  alien- 


XENOPnON'S  MINOR  WORKS,  141 


tax,  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  have  more  for- 
eigners than  citizens  residing  at  Athens.  To  secure 
this  desirable  object,  Xenophon  proposes  to  give  en- 
couragement to  foreign  settlers  by  exempting  them 
from  military  service,  and  granting  them  sites  for 
houses — all  for  the  sake  of  nine  shillings  per  head. 
The  foreigners  especially  referred  to  by  Xenophon 
were  *'Lydians,  Phrygians,  and  Syrians;"  andBoeckh, 
in  his  Public  Economy  of  Athens,"  points  out  that  the 
proposal  was  similar  to  what  it  would  be  in  modern 
times  to  encourage  the  settlement  of  "Jew  traders"  in 
a  country,  till  they  outnumbered  the  original  inhabit- 
ants, at  the  same  time  exempting  them  from  military 
service,  and  allowing  them  to  hold  land.  In  any 
country  which  was  exposed  to  war,  and  which  had 
adopted  such  a  policy,  it  is  clear  that  the  citizens 
would  gradually  be  swept  away  in  battle,  while  the 
aliens  without  patriotic  feelings  or  noble  motives 
would  be  left  in  possession  of  the  slate. 

Xenophon's  next  idea  is,  that  the  commerce  of 
Athens  should  be  stimulated  by  encouragements,  and 
facilitated  as  much  as  possible.  It  seems  to  us  an  odd 
suggestion  that  rewards  should  be  offered  to  those 
judges  who  in  mercantile  suits  should  give  judgment 
with  the  least  delay;  and  that  those  merchants  who 
had  brought  vessels  and  goods  of  great  account  to  the 
port,  should  be  honored  with  seats  of  distinction  on 
public  occasions.  Xenophon  thinks  that  the  state 
should  directly  speculate  in  ships  to  be  let  out  on  pro- 
fitable terms,  and  in  lodging-houses,  warehouses,  and 
shops;  a  loan  should  be  raised  for  this  purpose,  and 
our  financier  assumes  that  the  profit  on  these  ventures 
would  be  sure  to  enable  the  stockholders  to  receive  20 
per  cent  on  their  contributions.    It  does  not  occur  to 


142 


XENornoN. 


him  to  ask  why,  if  this  form  of  investment  would  be  so 
remunerative,  private  capital  should  not  find  its  way 
into  it,  without  passing  through  the  hand  of  the  state. 

Another  speculation  which  he  recommends  to  the 
Government  of  Athens  is  the  purchase  of  slaves  to  be 
hired  out  to  private  individuals,  for  the  purpose  of 
working  the  silver  mines  of  Laurion,  near  the  southern 
promontory  of  Attica.  He  thinks  that  the  state  might 
gradually  collect  a  little  family  of  ten  thousand  slaves, 
and  let  them  out  at  the  rate  of  an  obolus  (l^d.)  per 
head  per  diem.  This  would  give  an  annual  revenue  of 
a  hundred  talents,  or  about  £24,000.  These  slaves 
would  be  employed  by  the  citizens,  or  foreigners,  in 
mining  for  silver,  and  one  twenty-fourth  part  of  all  the 
ore  obtained  would  be  paid  to  the  state  as  a  royalty. 
The  whole  calculation  is  based  on  the  assumption  that 
the  silver  mines  of  Laurion  were  inexhaustible,  and 
that  under  all  circumstances  of  the  price  of  provisions, 
etc.,  they  could  be  worked 'to  a  profit  by  slave-labor. 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  such  an  assumption  was  un- 
justifiable. 

Boeckh  says,  that  of  all  the  schemes  and  recommenda- 
tions of  Xenophon  for  improving  the  revenues  of  his 
country,  the  only  one  that  is  unexceptionable  is  his 
exhortation  to  peace.  For  the  preservation  of  peace, 
he  has  great  faith  in  moral  measures.  He  advises  the 
appointment  of  peace  commissioners;"  and  he  recom- 
mends that  the  independence  of  the  temple  of  Delphi 
— a  question  analogous  in  ancient  Greece  to  the  neutral- 
ity of  Belgium  in  modern  Europe — should  be  main- 
tained rather  by  diplomacy  than  by  arms.    He  adds. 

Should  any  one  ask  whether  I  mean  that  if  any 
power  should  unjustly  attack  our  state,  we  must  main- 
tain peace  with  that  power? — I  should  not  say  I  had 


XENOPIION'S  MINOR  WORKS, 


143 


any  such  intention;  but  I  may  safely  assert  that  we 
shall  retaliate  on  any  aggressors  with  far  greater  faci- 
lity, if  we  can  show  that  none  of  our  people  does  wrong 
to  any  one,  for  then  our  enemies  will  not  have  a  single 
supporter."  This  simple  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  virtue 
and  justice  in  international  relationship,  received  a 
rude  commentary  in  the  subjugation  of  Athens  to  the 
power  of  Macedon  very  shortly  after' the  above  sentence 
was  written. 

In  the  (Economicus,"  *  or  **  Treatise  on  Housekeep- 
ing," we  have  Xenophon's  ideas  on  the  management  of 
the  house  and  the  farm  given  under  the  form  of  a  dia- 
logue, in  which  Socrates  is  represented  as  instructing 
our  old  friend  Critobulus  (see  above,  page  110),  now  a 
family  man  about  forty  years  old.  There  is  nothing 
especially  Socratic  in  the  instruction — the  philosophy  is 
that  of  Xenophon.  The  first  point  in  housekeeping, 
we  learn,  is  to  have  a  good  wife.  She  must  be  made 
so  by  her  husband,  being  married  in  her  fifteenth  year. 
She  must  by  taught  by  him  that  her  main  duty  is  to 
have  a  regard  for  property.  She  must  learn  to  stow 
away  things  neatly,  as  on  board  ship,  so  that  they  may 
take  up  little  room,  and  may  be  found  when  wanted. 
She  must  renounce  painting  and  rouging,  and  must 
keep  up  her  good  looks  by  taking  plenty  of  exercise 
within  doors  in  the  shape  of  household  duties,  such  as 
kneading  dough,  making  the  beds,  etc.,  in  addition  to 
going  about  to  superintend  the  work  of  the  slaves.  No 
word  is  said  of  her  reading,  or  sharing  any  intellectual 
pursuit  with  her  husband;  and  altogether  Xenophon's 
ideal  of  an  Athenian  wife  is  a  flagrant  case  of  **the 
subjection  or  women." 

*  With  the  word  "  CEconomicus,"  as  with  "  Hipparchicus,"  etc., 
the  word  logoSy  discourse,  treatise,  or  theory,  is  to  be  understood. 


144 


XENOPHON. 


After  the  house  comes  the  farm.  Xenophon  elo- 
quently sets  forth  the  praises  of  agriculture,  but  in  the 
rules  of  the  art  he  is  little  explicit.  He  rather  lays  it 
down  that  agriculture  is  the  easiest  of  all  arts  to  be 
learnt;  that  it  is  a  mere  application  of  common-sense; 
and  that  a  successful  farmer  differs  from  an  unsuccess- 
ful one,  not  in  knowledge,  but  in  care  and  diligence. 
All  this  has  a  very  dilettante  appearance.  It  contrasts 
strongly  with  modern  ideas  of  agricultural  chemistry, 
the  application  of  geology,  botany,  and  physiology  to 
farming,  and  the  constant  improvement  of  machinery 
for  lessening  human  toil  in  agricultural  operations. 
In  lieu  of  such  things,  or  even  of  the  special  processes 
of  the  ancients,  Xenophon  gives  us  a  picture  of  an 
ideal  gentleman  farmer,  who  keeps  his  body  vigorous 
by  active  and  temperate  habits,  who  practises  his  horse 
across  country  a  good  deal,  and  who  is  a  great  ruler 
of  men,"  having  the  desirable  qualification  of  making 
others  work  for  him  cheerfully  and  efficiently. 

Xenophon's  three  remaining  treatises  on  Horseman- 
ship," on  Cavalry  Management,"  and  on  Hunting," 
cannot  be  accused  of  superficiality.  They  treat  of 
their  respective  subjects  in  a  thorough  spirit,  and  are 
evidently  the  work  of  a  man  writing  con  amove  about 
his  favorite  topics.  The  '*  Horsemanship"  has  been 
much  admired  by  those  who  have  read  it  from  a  pro- 
fessional point  of  view.  It  gives  rules  first  for  choos- 
ing a  horse,  and  afterwards  for  grooming,  mounting, 
sitting,  and  managing  him.  In  order  to  avoid  being 
cheated  in  the  purchase  of  a  horse,  Xenophon  tells  the 
reader  that  he  must  observe  the  points  of  the  animal, 
beginning  with  the  feet  as  the  most  important  of  all. 
He  specifies  the  properties  to  be  approved  and  con- 
demned in  the  hoof,  and  from  this  ascends  to  the  legs, 


XENOPUON'S  MINOR  WORKS.  145 


and  all  the  other  points  in  a  horse's  body.  If  a  horse 
is  not  a  mere  colt,  his  age  must  be  looked  to,  for  a 
horse  that  has  no  longer  the  marks  in  his  teeth  neither 
delights  the  buyer  with  hope,  nor  is  so  easy  to  be  ex- 
changed." If  he  is  already  broken,  sufficient  trial  must 
be  made  of  his  paces,  mouth,  and  temper;  and  if  a 
war-h#rse  is  wanted,  we  must  try  specially  his  powers 
of  leaping. 

When  bought,  the  horse  must  be  placed  in  a  stable 
which  is  under  the  master's  eye.  It  must  be  made 
as  difficult  to  steal  the  horse's  food  from  his  stall  as 
the  provisions  from  the  master's  larder.  It  must  be 
observed  whether  the  horse  scatters  his  food  from  the 
manger — a  sure  sign  that  he  is  off  his  feed,  and  for 
some  reason  out  of  sorts.  The  ground  outside  the 
stable  should  be  laid  down  with  round  stones ,  in  order 
to  harden  the  horses'  feet.  This  sort  of  precaution 
was  especially  requisite  among  the  Greeks,  as  they  had 
not  attained  the  art  of  shoeing  horses  with  iron. 
Xenophon's  anxiety  on  the  subject,  leads  him  to  give 
the  mistaken  advice  that  the  groom  should  never  wash 
a  horse's  legs,  but  only  dry-rub  them;  for  ''daily 
wetting,"  he  says,  ''does  harm  to  the  hoofs."  He  is 
far  from  countenancing  the  practice  adopted  in  modern 
times  of  cropping  the  ears  and  tails  of  horses.  On  the 
contrary,  he  is  for  stimulating  with  water  the  growth 
of  the  tail  and  forelock,  in  order  to  give  the  animal  as 
much  defense  as  possible  against  flies;  and  of  the 
mane,  in  order  to  give  the  rider  an  ample  grasp  in 
mounting.  This  business  of  mounting  must  have  been 
a  serious  one  in  Xenophon's  day,  for  the  simple  ex- 
pedient of  stirrups  had  never  been  invented.  In  fact, 
if  we  want  to  form  an  accurate  idea  of  rider  and  horse 
as  conceived  by  Xenophon,  we  should  look  at  some  of 


146 


XENOPHOK 


the  friezes  from  the  Parthenon  in  the  British  Museum. 

Modern  sculptors  appear  to  consider  stirrups  prosaic, 
and  frequently  omit  them  on  that  account ;  but  Phidias 
omitted  them  in  his  equestrian  figures,  because  in  his 
time  they  did  not  exist.  And,  without  them,  the  only 
ways  the  ancients  had  of  mounting  were  either  to 
vault  on  horseback,  or  to  use  as  a  step  a  transv^se  bar 
affixed  to  the  shaft  of  the  spear,  or  to  have  *'  a  leg  up," 
which  the  Persians  managed  in  a  dignified  manner,  by 
using  the  shoulder  of  a  slave.  Xenophon  gives  several 
directions  for  the  process  of  mounting,  and  recommends 
the  reader  to  practice  mounting  from  the  right  side  as 
well  as  the  left,  as  being  an  accomplishment  often  use- 
ful in  war. 

All  his  maxims  for  the  treatment  of  the  horse  are  of 
the  most  judicious  description.  He  gives  it  as  the  one 
golden  rule  in  these  matters,  "  Never  approach  a  horse 
in  a  fit  of  anger;  for  anger  is  thoughtless,  and  will  be 
sure  to  lead  you  to  do  what  you  will  afterwards  repent." 
A  horse  is  never  to  be  struck  for  shying,  as  that  will 
only  make  him  associate  the  pain  he  feels  with  the 
object  which  before  caused  him  alarm.  The  •  rider 
should  touch  the  object  of  which  the  horse  was  afraid, 
and  then  gently  lead  him  up  to  it,  so  as  to  show  that 
it  is  nothing  terrible.  Xenophon's  system,  in  short, 
proceeds  on  the  same  humane  principles  as  that  of 
Professor  Earey.  He  even  thinks  that  a  horse  may  be 
taught  the  most  showy  paces,  such  as  caracolling  and 
rearing,  by  the  use  of  the  bit  and  by  signs  and  en- 
couragements, without  striking  him  on  the  legs  at  all. 
**It  is  on  horses  thus  trained  that  gods  and  heroes  are 
painted  riding,  and  those  who  are  able  to  manage  them 
skilfully  may  truly  be  said — 

'To  witch  the  world  with  noble  horsemanship.* 


« 


XENOrUON'S  MINOR  WORKS.  in 


So  beautiful  and  grand  a  sight  is  a  horse  that  bears 
himself  proudly,  that  he  fixes  the  gaze  of  all,  both 
young  and  old,  and  no  one  tires  of  contemplating  him, 
so  long  as  he  continues  to  display  his  magnificent  atti- 
tudes." 

The  "  Hipparchicus,"  or  "  Cavalry  Oflacer's  Manual," 
is  a  treatise  on  the  duties  of  the  Commandant  of  the 
Knights,  and  is  addressed  in  a  friendly  tone  to  the  per- 
son holding  that  oflSce  at  Athens.  The  regulation 
number  of  the  Knights  was  one  thousand,  but  Xeno- 
phon  intimates  that  the  corps  had  fallen  below  that 
number,  and  he  even  suggests  that  foreign  troopers 
should  be  enlisted  to  fill  up  the  ranks.  This  shows  how 
weak  was  the  cavalry  arm  of  the  Athenian  Republic, 
and  on  how  small  a  scale  all  its  operations  must 
be  conceived.  Xenophon,  in  treating  of  these,  does 
not  seem  to  have  had  any  clear  idea  of  the  functions 
of  cavalry,  as  distinguished  from  infantry,  in  war.  No 
military  rules  referring  to  this  subject  are  given.  In 
one  place,  indeed,  he  advises  that  when  the  enemy  are 
on  a  march,  and  any  weaker  force  gets  detached  from 
the  main  body,  a  dash  should  be  made  at  it  by  the 
cavalry;  and  in  this  he  says  that  the  tactics  of  beasts 
and  birds  of  prey  in  attacking  whatever  is  left  un- 
guarded should  be  imitated.  Elsewhere  he  says  that 
cavalry  should  be  supported  by  infantry,  and  that  the 
cavalry  may  be  made  to  conceal  infantry  among  and 
behind  them.  But  it  would  have  been  more  interesting 
if  Xenoi)hon  had  given  us  precisely  the  military  ideas 
of  the  day  as  to  how  each  force  was  to  act.  Perhaps 
such  ideas  were  little  developed;  and  Xenophon,  both 
in  this  work  and  in  his  "Anabasis,"  shows  that  to  his 
mind  was  not  a  science.  His  contrivances  for  de- 
ceiving the  enemy  by  mixing  up  grooms  with  poles  in 


148 


XENOPHON. 


their  hands  among  the  troopers,  so  as  to  make  the 
numbers  appear  larger,  and  other  tricks  of  the  kind, 
liave  a  puerile  appearance.  We  cannot  help  thinking 
how  futile  would  be  such  stratagems  against  tlue  power- 
ful field-glasses  of  modern  times.  But  this  treatise, 
and  much  of  Xenophon's  writing,  shows  in  a  strong 
light  the  comparative  pettiness  of  ancient  warfare,  and, 
we  may  add,  the  material  insignificance  of  the  Athenian 
republic.  All  the  more  honor  to  her  that  in  intel- 
lectual things  she  was  so  great!  Xenophon  does  not 
fail  to  lecture  his  commandant  of  cavalry  on  the  moral 
qualities  necessary  for  his  position,  and,  above  all,  on 
the  temperance,  endurance  of  fatigue,  and  manly  energy 
which  he  will  be  required  to  exhibit;  and  he  repeats 
over  and  over  again  that  the  enterprises  of  war  can 
only  be  successful  with  the  help  of  the  gods,  and  must 
never  be  undertaken  without  sacrifices  and  propitious 
omens. 

Nothing  was  more  personally  characteristic  of  Xen- 
ophon than  his  fondness  for  hunting;  and  we  have  seen 
above  (p.  118)  that  he  considered  this  exercise  the 
best  school  of  warlike  prowess  and  manly  virtue.  His 

Cynegeticus,"  or  Treatise  on  Hunting,"  embodies  the 
results  of  his  experience  in  the  art,  and  reinforces  the 
principles  which  he  held  in  relation  to  it.  This  little 
book  is  written  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  an  Izaak 
Walton  dilating  upon  his  favorite  pastime,  and  it  con- 
tains much  minute  and  accurate  observation  of  nature. 
It  was  first  translated  into  English  by  Blane,  the  w^ell- 
known  writer  on  "  Rural  Sports,"  and  he  speaks  of  the 
work  with  the  highest  admiration.  He  says,  **I  have 
been  indeed  astonished  in  reading  the  Cynegeticus  " 
of  Xenophon  to  find  the  accurate  knowledge  that  great 
man  had  of  the  nature  of  the  hare,  and  the  method  of 


XENOPHON'S  MINOR  WORKS,  149 


hunting  her;  and  to  observe  one  of  the  finest  writers, 
the  bravest  soldiers,  the  ablest  politicians,  the  wisest 
philosophers,  and  the  most  virtuous  citizens  of  anti- 
quity, so  intimately  acquainted  with  all  the  niceties 
and  difficulties  of  pursuing  this  little  animal,  and  de- 
scribing them  with  a  precision  that  would  not  disgrace 
the  oldest  sportsman  of  Great  Britain,  who  had  never 
any  other  idea  to  interfere  to  perplex  his  researches." 

The  greater  part  of  the  Cynegeticus"  is  devoted  to 
the  subject  of  hunting  the  hare;  and  it  is  perhaps  a 
little  disappointing,  after  all  that  Xenophon  says  about 
hunting  in  general  as  a  preparation  for  war,  to  find 
such  a  very  safe  kind  of  sport  made  so  prominent. 
Doubtless,  however,  even  running  with  beagles  hardens 
the  physique,  and  Xenophon  was  quite  right  in  main- 
taining (what  perhaps  in  his  time  it  was  necessary  to 
maintain)  that  those  nations  are  most  likely  to  do  well 
in  war  of  which  the  upper  classes  have  a  taste  for 
field-sports.  He  says,  that  for  a  young  man  who  has 
a  competency,  the  first  thing  is  to  devote  himself  to 
hunting,  and  the  second  thing  is  to  learn  other  accom- 
plishments. 

Hare-hunting,  with  Xenophon,  means  to  find  the 
hare  in  her  form  by  the  use  of  dogs  tracking  her 
scent;  when  found,  to  drive  her  with  these  dogs  into 
nets  previously  set  in  her  runs,  or,  failing  this,  to  tire 
her  out  and  run  her  down  in  the  open.  The  dramatis 
personcB  in  the  hunt  are  the  master,  who  manages  the 
dogs  himself,  and  his  net-setter,  who  must  be  an 
active  young  slave  keen  for  the  sport,  and,  as  Xeno- 
phon adds,  implying  his  own  ignorance  of  foreign 
tongues,  "he  must  be  able  to  speak  Greek."  The 
dogs  to  be  used  are  two  breeds  of  the  Spartan  hound; 
and  Xenophon  first  says  what  they  ought  not  to  be 


150 


XENOPUON. 


and  what  they  ought  not  to  do,  giving  an  elaborate 
and  amusing  catalogue  of  the  bad  styles  of  hunting 
which  a  dog  may  exhibit.  Afterwards  he  describes 
the  shape  and  action  of  a  perfect  hound.  His  con- 
ception, however,  is  different  from  that  which  Shake- 
speare had  in  describing  the  dogs  of  Theseus  in  the 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream"  : 

*'  My  hounds  are  bred  out  of  the  Spartan  kind, 
So  flewed,  so  sanded;  and  their  heads  are  hung 
-With  ears  that  sweep  away  the  morning  dew; 
Crook-kneed,  and  dewlapped  hke  Thessalian  bulls; 
Slow  in  pursuit,  but  matched  in  mouth  like  bells." 

Xenophon  thinks  that  the  ears  should  be  small, 
thin,  and  without  hair  at  the  back,"  that  the  neck 
should  be  **long,  flexible,  and  round,"  and  the  knees 
**  straight."  But  he  does  not  expect  great  speed  in  his 
dogs,  for  he  says  that  the  hare  can  hardly  ever  be 
caught  by  the  dogs  by  pure  coursing.  He  gives  many 
directions  for  breeding  and  training  hounds,  and  adds 
a  capital  list  of  names  for  them,  all  dissyllables,  such 
as  Psyche,  Thymus,  Phylax,  Rhome,  Porpax,  ^ther, 
Actis,  Hybris,  Augo,  Noes,  etc.,  (Spirit,  Courage,  War- 
der, Forceful,  Shield-hasp,  ^ther.  Sunbeam,  Wanton, 
Bright-eyes,  Marker). 

The  sport  begins  in  the  early  morning,  while  the 
scent  still  lies  on  the  track  made  by  the  hares  in 
returning  to  their  forms.  Xenophon  prefers  a  north- 
erly wind  for  scent — he  thinks  the  moisture  contained 
in  the  south  wind  to  be  a  disadvantage;  and  he  says 
that  their  full  moon  by  its  warmth  dulls  the  scent — 
added  to  which  the  light  makes  the  hares  skip,  so 
that  their  steps  are  at  longer  intervals,  which  is 
unfavorable  to  scenting.  Truly  the  moon  is  made  to 
answer  for  a  great  many  things  in  this  world!  The 


XENOFHON'S  MINOR  WORKS.  151 


spring  and  the  autumn  Xenophon  considers  the  best 
seasons  of  the  year  for  scent;  but  he  would  have 
sympatliized  with  that  modern  sportsman  who  talked 
about     stinking  violets,"  for  he  says  that  in  spring, 

*whea  the  ground  is  covered  with  flowers,  it  incon- 
veniences the  dogs  by  mingling  the  odor  of  the 
flowers  with  that  of  the  hare."  It  is  clear  that  he 
was  accustomed  to  hunt  the  hare  all  the  year  round, 
regardless  of  breeding-times,  and  to  follow  her  by  her 
tracks  in  the  snow — in  short,  to  kill  with  dogs  and 
nets  whenever  the  chance  occurred.  This  total  want 
of  the  idea  of  game-preserving  makes  it  easy  to  under- 
stand the  apparent  scarcity  of  hares  in  Xenophon's 
country.  He  seems  to  have  considered  that  to  kill  a 
single  hare  was  a  fair  day's  sport. 

His  description  of  the  hare  is  excellent,  and  he  draws 
a  most  graphic  picture  of  puss  lying  in  her  form. 
''When  she  is  awake  she  winks  with  her  eyelids,  but 
when  she  is  asleep,  the  eyelids  are  raised  and  fixed, 
and  the  eyes  continue  unmoved;  also,  while  asleep,  she 
moves  her  nostrils  frequently,  but  when  not  asleep,  less 
often."  The  huntsman,  sallying  forth  in  a  light,  loose 
dress,  with  light  sandals  on,  and  a  thick  staff  in  his  hand, 
when  begets  to  the  hunting-ground,  vows  to  Apollo  and 
to  Diana  the  huntress  a  share  of  what  may  be  captured ; 
he  then  sets  his  dogs  to  draw  for  the  scent,  which  we 
will  suppose  to  be  quickly  discovered.  Off  go  the  dogs 
now  with  joy  and  spirit,  discovering  two  or  three  scents, 
as  the  case  may  be,  proceeding  along  and  over  them  as 
they  intersect,  form  circles,  run  straight  or  winding,  are 
istrong  or  weak,  are  caught  up  or  not;  the  animals  pass 

ng  by  one  another,  waving  their  tails  about  incessantly, 
hanging  down  their  ears,  and  flashing  their  eyes.  When 
they  are  near  the  hare,  they  soon  let  the  huntsman' 


153 


XENOrilON, 


know  it,  by  vibrating  their  whole  bodies,  and  jealously- 
vying  for  the  lead,  now  clustering  together,  now  spread- 
ing abroad,  again  dashing  on,  till  at  last  they  hit  upon 
the  hare's  form  and  rush  in  upon  her.  Up  she  springs, 
and  away  she  starts,  and  the  huntsman  gives  the  view- 
hallo,  *  Forward,  dogs,  forward!  right,  dogs,  right!'  and 
wrapping  his  coat  round  his  arm,  he  takes  his  staff  and 
runs  after  the  dogs,  taking  care  not  to  head  the  chase." 
The  Imre,  running  in  a  ring,  is  expected  to  come  round 
to  where  the  nets  are  set,  and  so  get  caught.  If  not,  the 
hunt  must  be  pursued,  as  with  beagles  in  modern  times, 
and  all  the  incidents  of  the  day  are  described  in  the 
most  lively  manner  by  Xenophon,  with  instructions  for 
the  tactics  to  be  pursued,  and  the  proper  cries  and  mod- 
ulations of  the  voice  to  be  used.  When  the  hare  has 
been  caught,  either  by  hunting  or  by  driving  it  into  the 
nets,  the  huntsman  takes  up  his  snares,  and  having 
rubbed  down  the  dogs,  quits  the  hunting-field,  stopping 
occasionally,  if  it  be  noon-tide  in  summer,  that  the  dogs* 
feet  may  not  become  sore  on  the  way. 

The  element  of  nets  in  Xenophon's  hare  hunting  may 
be  considered  by  some  to  give  it  a  poaching  character, 
which  consists  in  having  too  great  an  eye  to  the  pot— - 
that  is,  to  the  actual  capture  of  the  animal  by  whatevef 
means,  instead  of  considering  the  pursuit  itself,  con* 
ducted  in  noble  form  and  under  honorable  restrictions, 
to  be  the  truer  end  in  the  sportsman's  mind.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  Xenophon's  genuine  interest  in  the 
working  of  the  dogs  is  a  sportsmanlike  feature.  It  is  to 
be  feared  that  no  point  so  favorable  can  be  found  in  his 
account  of  hunting  the  deer  or  antelope.  One  plan  that 
he  recommends  is  to  lie  in  wait  before  daybreak,  and 
watch  the  hinds  bringing  back  their  suckling  fawns  into 
the  grassy  glades.    Then  to  seize  up  a  fawn  from  its 


XENOPIION'S  MINOR  WORKS. 


153 


bed,  on  which  the  hind,  its  mother,  hearing  its  cries,  wil 
rush  upon  the  man  that  holds  it  and  try  to  take  it  from 
him,  when  she  may  easily  be  worried  by  the  hunter's 
dogs  and  dispatched  with  his  spear.  Another  plan  is, 
when  the  fawns  are  grown  older,  to  separate  one  of  them 
from  the  herd  of  deer,  and  run  it  down  with  fleet  and 
strong  Indian  dogs.  A  third  is  to  set  snares  in  the  deers' 
path,  consisting  each  of  a  noose  with  a  clog  attached. 
When  a  deer  puts  its  foot  into  one  of  these,  the  clog 
will  impede  its  running;  it  may  then  be  tired  out,  and 
speared  by  the  hunter. 

Boar-hunting  in  Xenophon  is  a  more  dangerous  and 
manly  sport.  When  the  bore  is  tracked  to  his  lair,  nets 
are  set  in  the  neighboring  outlets,  and  he  is  roused  by 
dogs,  the  hunters  following  with  spears.  When  he  has 
involved  himself  in  a  net  he  is  speared;  but  he  often 
turns  and  charges,  and  then  the  spear  is  used  like  a  fixed 
bayonet  on  which  to  receive  his  charge.  The  boar  may 
by  a  twist  of  his  head  wrest  the  spear  from  the  hunter's 
hand,  who  then  must  immediately  throw  himself  flat  on 
his  face,  so  as  to  prevent  the  boar  from  being  able  to 
wound  him  with  his  upward-turned  tusks,  and  a  com- 
rade must  instantly  step  forward  and  divert  the  beast 
by  another  attack.  Such  was  the  boar-hunting  of  the 
ancients — not,  perhaps,  equal  in  thrilling  excitement  to 
the  pig-sticking  "  of  Anglo-India,  and  yet  full  of  adven- 
ture and  risk.    Horace  *  places  the  love  for  this  sport 

*  Odes,  I.  i. : 

"  Regardless  of  his  gentle  bride, 
The  huntsman  tarries  from  her  side, 
Though  winds  blow  keen  'neath  skies  austere, 
If  his  staunch  hoimds  have  tracked  the  deer, 
Or  by  the  meshes'  rent  is  seen 
Where  late  a  Marsian  bore  hath  been." 

Mr.  Martinis  Translation. 


154 


XENOPIION, 


among  the  "ruling  passions  "of  mankind,  and  describes 
the  hunter,  when  the  boar  has  broken  through  the  nets 
and  got  away,  remaining  out  all  day  in  pursuit  of  him,  for- 
getful of  the  tender  bride  whom  he  has  recently  married. 

Of  hunting  large  game — that  is,  lions,  leopards,  lynxes, 
panthers,  and  bears — Xenophon  speaks  briefly  as  a 
foreign  sport.  He  mentions  that  in  some  places  the 
beasts  are  poisoned  with  aconite  mixed  in  lumps  of  food, 
and  placed  in  their  way.  In  other  places  they  are  inter- 
cepted in  the  plains  when  they  have  come  down  from 
the  mountains  at  night,  and  are  speared  by  men  on 
horseback.  Elsewhere,  they  are  taken  by  means  of  pit- 
falls, with  live  goats  for  bait. 

Thus  far  the  treatise  is  of  a  purely  technical  character; 
but  Xenophon,  in  concluding  it,  gives  way  to  his  love 
of  moralizing,  and  preaches  a  somewhat  incongruous 
and  irrelevant  sermon.  He  returns  to  his  old  theme,  the 
excellence  of  the  practice  of  hunting  as  preparing  a  man 
to  serve  his  country.  Then  he  goes  on  to  the  worth 
of  toilsome  pursuits  in  general,  and,  though  virtue  is 
toilsome,  says  that  mankind  would  not  shun  the  pur- 
suit of  her  if  they  could  only  see  in  bodily  form  how 
beautiful  she  is.  This  train  of  thought  reminds  him  of 
the  "  Sophists,"  or  professional  teachers  of  morals  and 
rhetoric.  These  he  denounces  as  impostors,  and  in  ref- 
erence to  the  subject  which  he  has  been  teaching,  he 
calls  them  ''hunters  for  rich  young  men."  There  is,  he 
adds,  another  spurious  kind  of  hunters — namely,  the 
political  place  hunters.  Their  example  young  men 
should  avoid,  and  should  rather  devote  themselves  to 
field-sports,  with  a  happy  faith  that  the  gods  delight  in 
and  approve  of  these,  and  that  by  practising  them  they 
may  become  a  benefit  to  their  parents,  their  friends,  and 
their  country. 


CONCLUSION, 


155 


The  whole  of  this  peroration  is  so  little  in  keeping 
with  the  former  part  of  a  very  excellent  treatise,  that 
some  are  inclined  to  think  that  it  must  have  been  added 
on  by  the  hand  of  a  forger.  But  the  manner  of  the 
writing  is  like  that  of  Xenophon,  when  in  his  most  ser- 
monizing and  rhetorical  vein.*  It  was  perhaps  written 
at  a  different  period  of  his  life  from  the  main  body  of 
the  *  *  Treaties  on  Hunting. "  We  know  that  the  ancieu  ts 
indulged  in  frequent  revisions  of  their  works;  and  it  is 
not  impossible  that  Xenophon,  at  a  period  when  his  taste 
and  style  had  been  somewhat  impaired  by  age,  took  up 
the  chapters  on  hunting  which  he  had  written  in  his 
vigorous  manhood,  and,  by  way  of  a  finish,  added  to 
them  this  cold  harangue. 

'CHAPTER  VIII. 

CONCLUSION. 

Some  one  of  the  works  of  Xenophon  is  usually  the 
fiast  Greek  prose  book  that  is  put  into  the  hands  of  the 
schoolboy;  but  it  is  for  the  sake  of  his  language  rather 
than  his  matter  that  Xenophon  is  read  in  our  schools  and 
colleges,  and  thus  he  is  read  in  a  fragmentary  w^ay,  and 
comparatively  few  people  have  anything  like  a  complete 
knowledge  of  his  writings.  It  has  indeed  been  too 
much  the  fault  of  classical  education  in  England  to 
think  exclusively  of  the  language  and  style,  and  to  dis- 
regard the  study  of  the  actual  life  and  ideas  of  the  an- 
cients, as  treasured  up  in  their  books.  But  in  bringing, 
as  in  this  little  volume,  an  ancient  classical  author  to 
the  notice  of  English  readers,  there  is  no  longer  the 


*  See  above,  page  99. 


156 


XENOPIIOK 


temptation  to  rest  contented  with  an  admiration  of  tlio 
words;  the  matter  must  stand  forth,  as  it  were,  en 
deshabille,  and  the  question  must  be  asked,  What  is  this 
famous  author  worth  for  all  time,  when  his  sentences 
have  been  robbed  of  that  perfection  of  form  which  un- 
doubtedly entitled  him  to  be  appreciated  as  an  artist  of 
style? 

This  is  the  sort  of  question  which  we  have  now  to 
answer  about  Xenophon.  And  in  the  first  place,  it 
must  be  remembered  that  in  regarding  an  ancient 
author  from  a  "  real "  point  of  view,  there  is  a  historical 
and  antiquarian  interest  in  the  very  imperfection  of  his 
ideas.  Flint  knives  and  arrow-heads  are  prized  for  our 
museums,  not  for  their  excellence,  but  for  their  com- 
parative inadequacy  to  their  respective  purposes.  So, 
too,  the  expression  by  an  old  writer  o|  very  limited  and 
even  erroneous  thoughts  on  subjects  with  regard  to 
which  the  world  is  now  better  instructed,  may  be  inter- 
esting to  us  as  a  contribution  to  the  history  of  the  mind 
of  man.    From  examples  of  this  kind  we  see  that 

*'  Through  the  ages  an  increasing  purpose  runs, 
And  the  thoughts  of  men  are  widened  by  the  process  of  the  suns 

and  we  learn  to  know  how  unequal  was  the  greatness 
of  the  ancients.  While  in  the  spheres  of  Art  and  the 
Beautiful  and  Abstract  Thought  the  Greek  are  the 
masters  for  all  modern  times,  w^e  find  what  an  immense 
advantage  over  them  has  been  given  to  us  by  the 
development  of  the  separate  sciences. 

The  study  of  Xenophon's  writings  is  peculiarly 
fertile  in  reflections  of  this  kind.  He  serves  very 
well  as  the  representative  Greek  of  the  fourth  century 
before  Christ.  He  stands  forth  as  the  product  of 
Athens,  of  the  teachings  of  Socrates,  of  the  debates  in 


CONCLUSION. 


157 


the  Agora,  and  generally  speaking,  of  the  **  Aryan 
principles  of  education.*'  The  circumstances  of  his 
life  gave  him  a  wide  experience  and  a  sort  of  cosmo- 
polite point  of  view.  He  seems  a  typical  instance  of 
the  sound  mind  in  a  sound  body."  He  was  en- 
dowed with  great  activity,  curiosity,  and  enlightened 
intelligence,  and  he  wrote  on  war,  contemporary  history, 
politics,  the  lives  of  great  men,  education,  finance, 
rural  and  domestic  economy,  the  equestrian  art,  and  the 
chase.  He  serves,  then,  to  us  as  a  measure  of  ancient 
Greece  in  many  of  the  departments  of  life.  And 
when  we  read  a  treatise  like  the  "  Revenues  of  Athens," 
written  by  a  man  of  his  eminence,  we  see  how  totally 
undeveloped  in  his  time  must  have  been  the  notions 
of  political  economy  and  of  foreign  politics,  as  imply- 
ing a  system  of  different  powers  in  relation  to  each 
other.  We  see  the  want  of  the  idea  of  science  in  his 
assuming  that  the  silver  mines  of  Laurion  were  inex- 
haustible, instead  of  referring  to  any  mineralogical 
data  on  the  subject.  We  see  a  great  contrast  to  our 
own  notions  in  his  opinion,  laid  down  in  the  "  GEco- 
nomieus,"  that  agriculture  is  the  easiest  of  all  arts, 
requiring  only  the  application  of  common-sense.  In 
the  same  work  we  find  the  indorsement  of  that  de- 
graded conception  of  the  position  of  the  wife  in  a 
household,  which  was  one  of  the  weakest  points  in 
ancient  Greek  civilization.  Throughout  his  histories 
and  military  disquisitions  we  see  how  comparatively 
petty  and  barbarous  in  their  details  the  most  important 
wars  of  his  day  were.  No  great  general  had  as  yet 
lived ;  the  movement  of  large  masses  of  troops  had 
not  become  a  science.  There  was  no  artillery  more 
formidable  than  the  bow  and  arrow,  or  the  stone 
rolled  down  a  hill.    And  the  least  consideration  con- 


158 


XENOPIION, 


vinoes  us,  that  the  ten  thousand  Greeks,  with  their 
spears  and  their  poean,  would  have  had  no  more  chance 
than  so  many  South-sea  islanders,  and  not  half  so  much 
chance  as  the  Abyssinians  of  King  Theodore,  against 
a  single  European  regiment  armed  with  the  breech- 
loader. 

It  is  difficult  at  first  to  realize  the  differences  in  ex- 
ternal things  between  the  ancient  Greeks  and  ourselves. 
It  is  difficult  not  to  forget  that  Greek  society  was  based 
on  slavery,  and  that  every  house  in  Athens  was  more  or 
less  filled  with  captives  from  Asia  Minor  or  Thrace,  or 
elsewhere,  whose  vernacular  language  probably  the  mas- 
ter of  the  house  did  not  understand.  It  does  not  occur 
to  one  to  remember  that  such  a  simple  instrument  as  the 
stirrup  had  never  been  introduced  to  assist  the  riders  of 
ancient  Greece.  But  an  author  like  Xenophon  going 
into  homely  details,  and  giving  us  unfaded  photographs 
of  daily  incidents,  fresh  as  they  occurred  twenty-two 
centuries  ago,  is  of  the  utmost  value  in  enabling  us  to 
see  these  things,  and  to  "restore"  in  imagination  the 
life  of  ancient  Greece.  No  more  graphic  and  stirring 
narrative  than  that  in  which  Xenophon  traces  the  for- 
tune of  the  Ten  Thousand  was  ever  written.  And  his 
/practical  treatises  on  the  Horse  and  on  Hunting  are  ex- 
cellent in  themselves,  and  are  full  of  interest  from  an 
antiquarian  point  of  view. 

Apart,  then,  from  his  style,  Xenophon's  chief  merit 
and  his  chief  service  to  mgdern  readers  consist  in  the 
amount  of  information  he  has  preserved.  The  ''Ana- 
basis'* is  of  course  full  of  information,  not  only  about 
Greek  manners,  but  also  about  the  state  of  the  Persian 
Empire,  the  geography  of  many  interesting  countries, 
and  the  characteristics  of  several  wild  tribes.  The 
*'Hellenica"  is  a  contemporary  record  of  the  affairs  of 


CONCLUSION. 


159 


Greece  for  a  period  of  fifty  years,  and  we  have  only  ab- 
stained from  abridging  it,  because  to  do  so  would  be  to 
rewrite  a  portion  of  Greek  history  which  has  been  often 
and  well  written  in  English  before.  To  the  **  Memora- 
bilia" men  look  for  a  particular  kind  of  information — 
information  about  the  strange  personality  of  Socrates. 
It  is  true  that  Xenophon  has  not  done  the  work  of  re- 
cording the  conversations  of  his  master  as  well  as  might 
be  wished.  He  had  not  the  fine  preception  or  dramatic 
faculty  which  would  have  been  requisite  for  the  task. 
But  the. collection  of  facts  which  he  gives  is,  as  far  as  it 
goes,  valuable. 

The  ancients  considered  Xenophon  a  *' philosopher,'* 
and  Diogenes  Laertius  writes  his  life  as  such.  But  his 
only  claim  to  be  called  so  is,  that  he  was  a  pupil  of  Soc- 
rates, and  wrote  anecdotes  about  him.  Xenophon 
never  uses  a  metaphysical  word  or  utters  a  metaphys- 
ical thought  in  all  his  writings.  He  was  a  moralist, 
and  apparently  he  could  not  understand  that  Socrates 
was  anything  more  than  a  moralist.  Xenophon's  ethical 
philosophy  was  expressed  in  his  Education  of  Cyrus," 
though  often  repeated  without  variation  in  other  books. 
It  comes  to  something  of  this  kind — that  a  man  should 
train  his  body  by  hunting  and  similar  exercises,  and 
his  mind  by  debate  and  discussion ;  that  he  should  be 
very  sober  and  temperate;  very  god-fearing,  especially 
in  the  matter  of  seeking  signs  and  omens;  very  just  and 
truthful ;  that  he  should  possess,  or  acquire,  the  art  of 
influencing  and  ruling  over  other  men,  and  that  he 
should  use  that  art  for  beneficent  ends.  Such  was  the 
whole  duty  of  man  according  to  Xenophon.  It  was  a 
simple  doctrine,  and  we  can  easily  see  that  it  was  com- 
pounded of  the  Spartan  ideas  of  education,  with  some 
of  the  intellectual  and  moral  ideas  of  Socrates.  We 


160 


XENOrilON. 


may  conclude,  then,  that  Xenophon  was  no  philosopher 
in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term.  Even  as  a  moral  essay- 
ist, as  in  the  Cyropaedeia,"  the  *'Hiero,"  the 
**  Agesilaus,"  etc.,  he  is  not  strong,  but  only  passa- 
ble. His  strength  is  not  in  deep  thoughts  or  elevated 
sentiments;  not  as  a  master  of  the  true  and  thebeautiful, 
but  as  a  manly,  straightforward  writer  of  information, 
and  as  having  admirably  told  one  deeply  interesting 
story — the  epictale  of  the  Ten  Thousand  Greeks. 

At  the  same  time,  we  must  not  refuse  to  allow  to 
Xenophon  a  certain  amount  of  originality.  It  is  pro- 
bable that  he  had  no  model  before  him,  either  for  his 
''Anabasis"  or  for  his  Memorabilia."  And  it  seems 
not  unlikely  that  his  *'  Banquet"  may  have  been  the  first 
imaginary  dialogue  introducing  Socrates  that  was  ever 
written.  If  so,  it  gave  the  idea  to  Plato,  who,  taking 
it  up,  wrote  dialogues  that  are  to  the  Banquet"  of 
Xenophon  as  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  to  those  of  Mar- 
low.  The  various  minor  works  of  Xenopon  are  speci- 
mens of  a  kind  of  originality — not  the  originality  of 
creative  genius,  but  rather  a  sort  of  practical  inventive- 
ness which  showed  him  what  things  might  be  done, 
though  it  did  not  lead  him  to  do  them  in  the  very  high- 
est way.  Genius,  indeed,  in  the  highest  sense,  we  must 
absolutely  deny  to  Xenophon,  who  had  abundant  versa- 
tile talent,  but  who  lacked  the  vision  and  the  faculty 
divine."  He  is  not  great  even  as  a  historian:  his  Ana- 
basis" is  wanting  in  general  reflections,  and  his  *'Hel- 
lenica"  is  merely  the  work  of  an  annalist,  standing  to 
Thucydides,  whose  history  he  undertook  to  continue, 
much  in  the  same  relation  as  Smollett  occupies  towards 
Hume.  We  must  withdraw,  in  short,  all  claim  for 
Xenophon  to  rank  among  the  greatest  writers  of 
antiquity.    He  comes  into  a  secoT>d  class,  and  is  admira- 


CONCLUSION. 


IGl 


ble,  as  far  as  his  thought  and  matter  are  coucerned, 
only  for  those  qualities  which  we  have  above  attributed 
to  him. 

To  this  extent,  and  no  furtlier,  we  should  agree  with 
Colonel  Mure,  whose  account  of  Xenophon  (in  his 
*'  Critical  History  of  the  Language  and  Literature  of 
Ancient  Greece")  is  from  beginning  to  end  a  severe 
attack.  Among  other  things,  he  impugns  the  good 
faith  of  Xenophon  as  a  historion,  and  stigmatizes  him 
as  exceedingly  false  in  the  color  which  he  gives  to 
various  transactions.  Mr.  Grote,  on  the  other  hand, 
places  unbounded  reliance  on  all  the  statements  of 
Xenophon.  Probably  an  estimate  between  these  two 
extremes  may  be  the  correct  one.  It  is  very  likely 
that  Xenophon's  account  of  his  own  share  in  the 
** Retreat  of  the  Ten  Thousand"  should  be  taken  cum 
grano  sails.  It  was  the  practice  of  ancient  historians 
to  insert  in  their  narratives,  as  having  actually  been 
.  spoken,  speeches  which  they  composed  in  cold  blood 
as  suitable  to  the  occasion.  Xenophon,  no  doubt  fol- 
lowed this  plan  in  writing  his  Anabasis,"  and  he  may 
have  allotted  to  himself  a  rather  more  prominent  andF 
favorable  position  on  some  occasions  than  others  would 
have  assigned  him.  Thus  far  his  writing  may  have 
been  a  sort  of  DicMung  und  WahrJieit;  but  there  is 
every  reason  to  believe  that  the  truth  greatly  prepon- 
derated. Xenophon,  of  course,  had  his  prejudices,  and 
he  was  a  versatile  Greek  of  rather  superficial  character: 
but,  on  the  whole,  he  was  manly  and  well-intentioned, 
and  to  consider  falsehood  as  being  a  prominent  char- 
acteristic of  his  nature  seems  to  us  to  be  unjust  and  un- 
founded. 

Before  taking  leave  of  him  we  must  say  a  word 
about  his  style,  which  this  volume  has  not  been  able  to 


163 


XENOPIIOK 


represent,  except  in  so  far  as  it  has  enabled  the  reader 
occasionally  to  notice  the  homely  raciness  of  his  expres- 
sions. Several  instances  of  this  occur  in  the  exact 
translation  given  above  (page  58)  of  a  long  passage  from 
the  "Anabasis."  Colloquial  vigor  is  the  eloquence  of 
Xenophon.  For  the  rest  he  is  pure,  simple,  and  lucid. 
The  Greek  language  had  been  perfected  in  Xenoplion*s 
youth  by  sophists  and  rhetoricians — by  the  Greek  orators 
with  Pericles  at  their  head,  and  by  the  great  historian 
Thucydides.  Xenophon  used  the  language,  thus  de- 
veloped, as  an  instrument  of  which  he  was  perfectly 
master.  In  his  best  works  he  writes  as  if  he  did  not 
think  about  style  at  all,  but  simply  aimed  at  saying,  in 
a  plain  manner,  what  he  had  to  say.  His  taste  and 
cultivation  gave  an  unstudied  refinement  to  his  diction: 
and  his  freedom  from,  all  eccentricity  and  from  all  ex- 
cessive specialty  of  mind,  allowed  his  writing  to  attain 
to  a  sort  of  national  and  universal  standard,  rather  than 
an  individual  character.  And  so  it  has  come  about  that 
the  model  of  classical  Greek  prose  is  considered  to  be 
preserved,  not  in  the  labored  antithetical  greatness  of 
Hne  style  of  Thucydides,  nor  in  the  lovely  half-poetical 
diction  of  Plato,  but  in  the  every-day  sentences  which 
make  up  the  pages  of  Xenophon.  Not  only  are  these 
the  study  of  the  English  schoolboy,  but  the  newspaper 
writers  of  Athens  at  the  present  day,  in  hopes  of  reviv- 
ing some  of  the  classical  purity  of  the  ancients,  are  said 
to  be  diligently  engaged  in  teaching  the  corrupt  modern 
Greek  language  to  copy  Xenophon. 


THE  END. 


I 


V 


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